@no1marauder said
BUMP for the COVID minimizer who said he'd look at the evidence that the unvaccinated have a much higher chance of catching the omicron variant than the vaccinated (you know who you are).
I have carefully looked at the evidence.
On the one hand, people showing up with Omicron (especially at hospitals) seems overwhelmingly unvaxxed.
On the other hand, most experts you speak to put the protection against infection at 30% or less.
Why the apparent discrepancy?
Possibilities:
1. Mild infections (which are the vast majority of infections in vaxxed people) don't show up in testing (and certainly not in hospitals and clinics).
2. Vaxxed infected with Omicron have lowed viral loads and less contagious time.
Both are almost certainly true.
But okay, I'll amend my position from "vaccines probably slow the spread of Omicron somewhat" to "vaccines probably slow the spread of Omicron substantially."
That, of course, begs the question of whether mandates are really necessary, which depends on how much of a public interest there is in slowing Omicron spread.
Once you concede that we're all going to be exposed to Omicron eventually if we haven't already (and most of us have), the public interest in slowing the spread is kind of weak. Hospitals don't generally seem to be buckling and the situation is actually improving substantially in the northeast (it will take another couple of weeks for the country to follow). Many of the hospitalizations and most of the deaths now being reported are leftover from Delta.
Assume the following 3 conditions:
1. The infection is Omicron
2. The person is fully vaccinated
3. The person is not exceedingly old or vulnerable
The odds of this person having serious problems or dying are a rounding error from zero.
So, given that the unvaccinated have the option of getting vaccinated and that the exceedingly old or vulnerable have the option of staying protected by social distancing and N95s, there doesn't seem to be much of a public interest in coercive measures and (especially) draconian measures like school and business shutdowns.