# South Korea is having a very mysterious Covid outbreak

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-korea-is-having-a-very-mysterious-covid-outbreak/961003>\
**Category:** The Quarantine Zone\
**Tags:** covid-quarantine\
**Created:** [March 14, 2022, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-korea-is-having-a-very-mysterious-covid-outbreak/961003 "2022-03-14T02:51:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-korea-is-having-a-very-mysterious-covid-outbreak/961003/21 "2022-03-14T15:52:08Z")

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> [@Velocity](#):
>
> I mean, even if they were having their surge for the first time, this shows that the vaccine is very weak against prevention infection/transmission.
> 
> It seems to be great against preventing severe symptoms or death. But it sure isn’t preventing outbreaks from happening with gusto.

Correct. The vaccine still works remarkably well, even against significantly mutated omicron. But it no longer provides much sterilizing immunity, so even vaccinated people should be extremely cautious when visiting their immune compromised friends and relatives, and wear a mask.

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**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-korea-is-having-a-very-mysterious-covid-outbreak/961003/22 "2022-03-14T15:57:57Z")

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That’s what I was thinking as well. This isn’t new news.

Basically the vaccines were good for preventing infection/transmission of the original COVID up through Delta, but not Omicron.

It’s still very good against hospitalization and death though, which is really what the point of the vaccine is in the first place- if you are vaccinated and boosted, you have a VERY low chance of being hospitalized or dying, which isn’t the case for the unvaccinated.

It’s like the flu- I’m pretty sure that the flu I suffered last week (Flu-A, I was tested) was a strain that I have been vaccinated against, as I only felt bad/ran fever for 4 days, and 7 days later, all I’ve got is a mild cough that’s steadily getting better. I’m also pretty sure that if it had been a strain I was unvaccinated against, I’d probably still be feeling bad.

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**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2022, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-korea-is-having-a-very-mysterious-covid-outbreak/961003/23 "2022-03-14T20:08:33Z")

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Your Local Epidemiologist has a [great post](https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affairs-march-14-europe?s=r) on this today and it pretty much is that they are just now getting hit with omicron. Infections are way up in South Korea, even higher than they were in the US recently, but their deaths have been lower due to wide vaccination.

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