You still can't compare those trends, because many of those countries have relaxed their lockdown measures after reaching a certain level of vaccination. When looking at hospitalization rates instead of only case rates, it seems that the countries with high levels of vaccination are seeing a much lower percentage of cases ending up in hospital.
Taking for example the NL numbers: we have twice as many cases/day as during last winter's peak, but only half as many deaths/day. Naively, that suggests that the vaccines reduce case mortality by 75%. But that data is also hopelessly incomplete: we recently reinstated some of our lockdown measures, so the number of infections/day is stabilizing, but fatalities/day will probably keep rising for another week.
Lockdowns were implemented to prevent the collapse of the medical system. Lockdowns have been repealed with the advent of vaccines. Why? Because those vaccinated who get COVID get much milder cases and don't typically require hospitalization, and for the few that do, they don't require ICU. Lockdowns weren't implemented to reduce case counts per se, they were implemented to prevent medical system collapse.
The vaccines have been instrumental in getting back to normal.
Hospitals have never been anywhere near collapse in most places though. Currently in Finland for example there's currently hysteria about the hospital capacity, whereas in actuality the issue is that some non-critical surgery would need to be postponed. It's far from "collapsing".
Uh. my home state in the US had to call in the military to mediate the ER since people were starting fights because people having e.g. severe heart attacks were just turned away with a "sorry".
Italy had severe shortages of medical supplies that led to many medical workers on the frontline to die of infection.
Your personal life bubble does not reflect the rest of the world. Asserting "most places" weren't under collapse is quite strange given that it's patently false.
You're not referencing any data at all, just handwaving at it. You're only comparing the raw infection rates without taking into account the amount of mitigating measures such as mask mandates, work-from-home orders, and closing of schools, restaurants and bars. Last year's numbers were all achieved with very stringent lockdowns and school closures; pretty much all those countries returned to classroom teaching in September of this year.
So no, you don't get to claim "hard data" on your opinion.
I stated that case counts today are roughly equivalent to pre-vaccine times in most countries
This is called verifiable data.
Also the numbers in the US south are roughly equivalent to the east/west that had much more stringent lockdown, mask, and vaccine measures.
If these policies had any significant impact, you would see a large disparity in outcomes of TX, FL, vs NY, CA.
This is also verifiable data. Prove me wrong with data showing FL and TX had worse outcomes in regards to infections to blue states with strict measures.
If you can't show a significant difference in outcome, reassessing your firmly held beliefs that have been proven wrong through data is called "following the science".
Most lockdown proponents are following religion, and what they desire to be true, than science.
You stated that "We've gone from 0% vaccinated, to 60-70% with no discernable dip in infection counts". This is called making misleading claims.
There's numerous confounding factors in these numbers that you conveniently ignore, and that you keep ignoring even when they're pointed out to you. This is called doubling-down on an indefensible position.
Then, instead of defending why your use of those numbers is scientifically sound, you accuse others of having "firmly held beliefs". This is called a personal attack.
And lastly, instead of doing the hard work to show why your conclusion is scientifically sound, you expect the other party to disprove your argument for you. This is called trolling.
Look at the covid stats for the UK. Do you see a difference?
If you choose not to spend 1 minute to Google it, that's your prerogative. I'm not going to cite my comment like a research paper when the verification is a Google search away.
If you disagree with the stats, feel fee to provide evidence that refutes it. That would enhance the conversation.
Are you serious? Most of Europe at least is at numbers that would've created herd immunity with the alpha variant (had the vaccine actually stopped transmission). I'd say that's pretty widespread.
I'm more referring to the fact that Europe is nowhere near the low end of the vaccination percentage health officials stated was necessary to have any chance at controlling this.
Ok, I think initial estimates (back in 2020) were that we'd need a vaccination rate of around 80-85% (which many countries have now). But that got thrown out of the window with force with Delta.
Look at the trends in Italy, UK, US, for example.
I agree the vaccine helps, but there is no clear impact on reducing spread if you look at infection data in aggregate.
We've gone from 0% vaccinated, to 60-70% with no discernable dip in infection counts.