[tremon]

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.

[adam_arthur]

I never disputed that vaccines mitigate effect of the virus. It's clear that they do, which will limit hospitalizations.

I am disputing that lockdowns have led to any discernable difference in outcomes over the long run in regards to case counts.

New Zealand may be the special case where they were able to actually completely halt inbound travel. But obviously their situation doesn't generalize.

[taylodl]

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 Lockdowns have been repealed with the advent of vaccines.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.

[spurgu]

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".

[junon]

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.

[spurgu]

Sigh. I've lived in three countries during this whole thing. Of course it's a problem somewhere. Not just as widespread as the media would have you believe.

I just took Finland as an example, since I have family there and happen to follow closely what's going on there (so I don't have to look things up).

And you brought up two examples. Need I remind you how many countries/regions/cities there are in the world?