[locuscoeruleus]

> - It’s failed to stop the pandemic in any meaningful way

One of the nordic countries has 10x more infections than the first wave and 0.5x people in intensive care. While the vaccines have failed to stop the pandemic, I disagree that the contribution is not meaningful.

[throwaway2474]

I think that’s largely because omicron is less serious. I think the vaccine helped against past strains, and maybe a bit against omicron, but it was vastly oversold.

[ceejayoz]

> I think that’s largely because omicron is less serious.

You can think that as much as you like, but we have actual numbers on hospitalization/death in the two populations, and there's a clear, large difference even in the Omicron surge.

[throwaway2474]

Delta and previous strains saw horrendous, mass casualties in many countries. I don’t think that’s really happening anywhere with omicron. It may be that enough of the world is vaccinated at this point (or had covid) that there’s no way to properly compare. Or maybe it’s just not being reported anymore? But it definitely doesn’t feel anywhere near as bad as previous waves, even in the unvaccinated population.

[ceejayoz]

> I don’t think that’s really happening anywhere with omicron.

It's almost like a bunch of people got vaccinated, but the US is still losing thousands a day. More than a 9/11's worth every day for the past week.

> It may be that enough of the world is vaccinated at this point (or had covid) that there’s no way to properly compare.

The 10-30% unvaccinated in most developed nations provides plenty of statistically significant population, and we've literally done the comparing. (See charts: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/briefing/omicron-deaths-v...)

> But it definitely doesn’t feel anywhere near as bad as previous waves, even in the unvaccinated population.

We know it's less lethal, yes, but extrapolating that to "the vaccine isn't useful" is false.