[elil17]

But this isn’t even a study - it’s one person’s interpretation of a variety of studies, none of which directly show what he is suggesting. In this case, more research is literally needed to have any sort of answer to the question the author is bringing up.

[berenza]

while you wait for more research, i suggest looking at the countries that have ended their mandates this year, and how they are doing, as a cheap and expedient form of research into the question of how useful mandates are.

[mlyle]

We're talking about the efficacy of vaccination in preventing infection. I assume you're talking about ending mask mandates, which seems like a bit of a silly thing to bring up.

[berenza]

you could do it for any covid-related public health measure or mandate, depending on the places you compared. denmark and sweden and norway and the UK are all ending, or have ended, all restrictions this quarter. i recall other countries (and states in the US) have done similar at different times in the past 2 years, but i'm not feeling like googling them right now.

[mlyle]

That doesn't seem to be a reasonable kind of logic-- "some places are choosing to end mask mandates, therefore vaccines don't work."

[berenza]

who are you quoting?

[mlyle]

Please explain how your logic differs from that in the quote.

You may be reaching for something like "I have no confidence in public health mandates of any kind, based on our experience so far... therefore I'm inclined to not believe vaccine mandates will be effective."

But you seem to be leaping to say that vaccine mandates are not effective in preventing transmission ... because some regions are discontinuing requiring masks... This is very confused.