[scottbruin]

I think you have that backwards. Asymptomatic infection with likely transmission (plus presyptomatic transmission) was a big characteristic of COVID since day one (and one of the reasons it’s so hard to contain compared to say, Ebola). Research seems to show that vaccinated people have shorter windows of spreading virus, and (at least before omicron variant) were much less likely to have virus in their nose without symptoms.

From a policy perspective, it’s not clear that unvaccinated individuals will stay home with symptoms since some percentage of them seem to think is not real, not a real threat, etc.

Edit: summary article that covers some of this (though keep in mind science is still working through this and each variant changes things) https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/new-data-on-covid-19-trans...

[amatecha]

I don't think I have it backwards at all. Non-vaccinated people are not going out and partying (partly because they legally can't, and partly because they probably don't feel like dying). There's very little avenue for them to even catch the virus, let alone spread it, especially because catching it means _probably_ being symptomatic and thus knowing not to be around people.

I mean, "breakthrough infections among vaccinated individuals remain uncommon" is simply false?? My friend's entire family of 15 people all got Omicron despite being double-vaccinated and boosted. After they already all had Delta last year as well! That's not "uncommon", that was literally a 100% infection rate, twice, for the family members who gathered.

[danans]

> Non-vaccinated people are not going out and partying (partly because they legally can't, and partly because they probably don't feel like dying).

Here is a equally unsubstantiated claim: voluntarily unvaccinated people are going about partying and otherwise carrying on because they largely don't believe that COVID is real or has ever been a problem worse than a cold or flu, or don't care either way.

We don't know how differently vaccinated and unvaccinated people are behaving right now. Nobody is collecting that data. The only thing we know is that most of the severe hospitalized cases now are among the unvaccinated, and that the hospitalization/infection rate is significantly lower with Omicron than Delta.

Everyone is just trying to figure out how to keep the health system from being overwhelmed since The infection rate for this variant is so much higher. With the exception of the voluntarily unvaccinated, there is little blame to be laid on anyone in this situation. We are all just trying to do a controlled landing into the endemic stage of this virus.

[aiisjustanif]

> Non-vaccinated people are not going out and partying (partly because they legally can't, and partly because they probably don't feel like dying).

Do you live in the US? It’s not illegal in most southern states to go to bars and clubs with COVID, people do it often enough. Places aren’t checking your temperature or vaccination status.

Also, you must have missed the non-vaccinated college parties and then them returning home for break.

> I mean, "breakthrough infections among vaccinated individuals remain uncommon" is simply false??

The CDC defines a vaccine breakthrough infection as one in which a nasal swab can detect the SARS-CoV-2 RNA or protein more than 14 days after a person has completed the full recommended doses of an FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccine. [1]

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effective...

[Thorentis]

Everybody, vaccinated or not, was in lockdown in many parts of the world last year. Which meant asymptomatic infections were far less likely to result in transmission.

Now, we have vaccinated people allowed to mingle and do "high risk" activities without being tested, despite the vaccine increasing the likelihood of asymptomatic infection. Unvaccinated people, who are more likely to be symptomatic, and therefore more likely to know if they have covid, cannot do those high risk activities.

So the irony is that the people more likely to be unknown carrier, have more freedoms and can therefore spread the virus more easily.

[Izkata]

> Asymptomatic infection with likely transmission (plus presyptomatic transmission) was a big characteristic of COVID since day one

It was a guess from day one (because "novel virus"), that got treated as fact. (From memory) asymptomatic spread before the vaccines was found to be virtually nonexistent near the end of 2020. I don't recall findings about presymptomatic.

[arrrg]

This is all crystal clear by now. We know how Covid-19 spreads.

The height of infectiousness is just before or around the start of symptoms. You are infectious maybe a day or so before symptoms start. You aren’t infectious for that many days. This means pre-symptomatic spread is a major factor.

Truly asymptomatic cases also exist but they aren’t that common (and many of those, if examined very closely, turn out to be cases with symptoms, just extremely mild ones). So presymptomatic spread most certainly is a major factor. It’s how this virus can spread so effectively without non-medical interventions and vaccines (which, yeah, also reduce transmission).

That’s basic virus 101 and while we didn’t know a lot about this in mid 2020 we do know a lot about this know. This isn’t even speculative or on shaky ground, this is quite solid science.

It blows my mind that people do not know this.