I’m not a doctor, either, but this is my common sense perspective:
I know of quite a few double-vaccinated who have been hospitalized. So it appears we have a vaccine that (a) doesn’t prevent breakthrough cases and (b) doesn’t prevent a vaccinated person from getting sick.While I understand that no vaccine is 100% effective, I have to ask how many people received the smallpox or polio vaccines and continued to infect others and get sick? I think the answer is an infinitesimal amount. Otherwise, we would not have eradicated smallpox or polio.
I disagree that the goal of a vaccine is merely to mask symptoms. The goal of a vaccine is to prevent infection and symptoms and eliminate spread to others. The problem, I suspect, is that no vaccine can accomplish this with COVID-19, which means the only 100% certainty is that this virus — like the four coronaviruses that preceded it and have lived with us for hundreds and thousands of years — is never going away. Like the other coronaviruses, it is rapidly spawning variants and is no longer a pandemic; it is endemic. Unless we can magically vaccinate every single human on the planet instantaneously, it’s a pipe dream to ever expect to eradicate it.
That said, I come back to your comment above: the question is not whether you or I might test positive for the virus; the question is whether we get sick.Unquestionably, despite all the variants running wild now, hospitalizations and deaths are nowhere near as high as they were last spring and summer when the original strain appeared. Hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and medical staff aren’t running themselves ragged.
This is good news, and I think it’s happening not just because of our vaccination efforts (even if it’s not 100% effective, the vaccine is clearly reducing the number of cases), but also because the variants are becoming more contagious and less lethal. You don’t have to have a medical degree to know that this is the natural course of all viruses: they become less lethal with each variant. We need only look to our experience with prior coronaviruses as proof of this. If subsequent strains did become more virulent over time, much of the human race would have perished from the many evolving strains of prior coronaviruses. This is a simple fact rarely mentioned by experts or discussed in the media.
I think we have thankfully crossed a threshold; COVID is no longer the ugly threat that it once was. We are living with it, like we live with influenza. People are still getting sick and dying, but not at alarming rates. The pace is leveling off tremendously. If you doubt this, please check the current capacities at your local hospitals here:
https://covidactnow.org/?s=2075995
Reports of more breakthrough cases — especially high profile ones — will do little to help the vaccination effort. More people will likely have your reaction: if I can still get sick, why am I taking the risk of a novel vaccine? If I can still spread the virus to others, what’s the point of getting vaccinated?The answer, in my opinion, is simple: if you’re at high risk, get vaccinated and give yourself a fighting chance. If you’re not, don’t rush to get jabbed. Ironically, given that the vaccine masks symptoms, the vaccinated are potentially more prolific spreaders of the virus (and breeders of variants) than the unvaccinated because when an unvaccinated person manifests symptoms, they’re likely to remove themselves from public. This isn’t the case with an asymptomatic carrier who has been vaccinated; they’re likely to mingle, blissfully unaware, and spread the virus.
At this point, I think the most we can hope to do is protect those most vulnerable and minimize the impact on hospital resources. We seem to be doing a fine job of that now, which is why I think the “mandatory vaccination” narrative is pointless, counterproductive, and divisive.
