What To Tell Folks Who Ask About Vaccines And The Delta Variant.

DecreasingHesitancy

MattersVille

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Update: Aug 12th...Regarding points one and two, below...Eric Topol has aggregated the data from a number of studies on vaccine protection numbers against the Delta variant...They are dropping to approximately 50% protection...The protection against severe disease, and worse, however remain solid.

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As we predicted a couple not long ago, the American CDC's concern about vaccinated folks who suffer breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infections that are themselves infectious has muddied the public perception significantly, thanks in no small part in my opinion, to the media's inability to walk and chew gum at the same time.

So.

Let's say you run into someone who is hesitant and you want to calmly explain to them why it is still a very, very, very, very good idea to get vaccinated.

You could try the following five point plan...

First, yes, it is true, vaccinated folks who suffer breakthrough infections of the Delta variant (which is now dominant in North America) can be infectious.

Second, as is clear from the chart directly below from San Diego county, where slightly more than half of folks are fully vaccinated, far fewer vaccinated folks suffer these breakthrough infections:

Third, many fewer folks who are vaccinated and suffer breakthrough infections go on to get sick enough that they have to enter hospital:

Fourth, many fewer folks who are vaccinated and suffer breakthrough infections, who then go on to get sick, actually die. San Diego also has these data, but the graph below is more of a zoom out, done by the Wall Street Journal (paywalled), looking at America's truly tragic real world vaccination experiment county-by-county:

Fifth, getting vaccinated doesn't just protect you but it also protects everyone else in your household, your workplace and your community as well as your loved ones because it decreases spread as was demonstrated by home grown modellers in British Columbia modellers recently:

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If you want a nice summary of all the data for all the vaccines, Eric Topol, who really tracks all of this stuff and is a fantastic Twittmachine follow, has it.

Again, please not that, while I am a life scientist, I am neither a virologist nor an epidemiologist...In the spirit of full disclosure, however, I am acquainted with a couple of the home grown modellers cited above.



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