| From reading comments, it seems like a lot of people don't understand that Delta changed things. In a world without Delta, the vaccines did do an incredible job of actually preventing infection. "Effectiveness [against confirmed infection] remained above 95% regardless of age group, sex, race, or presence of comorbidities."[1] But that study used data up to March 2021, which means mostly non-Delta variants. Against Delta, vaccine effectiveness in preventing infection might be closer to 50%+ (e.g. [2]) -- which is still very effective! It's just not effective as we would like. "Hi, here's a shot that cuts your odds of getting infected in half. Do you want it?" Um, yes please. You have to change your behavior when the facts in the world change. The messaging had to change with the facts. Of course you can't use the old vaccination thresholds for re-opening if the virus is now infecting 10x (50% vs. 95%) as many vaccinated people as it was 2 months ago, that doesn't make sense. The virus moved the goalposts. You can be angry about that, but that's reality. We are so lucky that despite everything, the vaccines are still incredibly effective at keeping you from dying if you get COVID. I'm actually very angry at how the mask messaging was handled (there should absolutely be consequences for that), but it doesn't matter how angry I am, if I don't get vaccinated I am irrationally refusing the single best way to avoid dying in this pandemic. [1] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-1577
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e4.htm |