I am reading many who have been vaccinated are once again getting Covid; however, I haven’t been able to glean how severe the illness is with the majority?
Pat, yes being vaccinated won't stop people getting infected, so vaccination is not a panacea regarding Covid. A few days ago I read this article about the situation in Israel (which has a high vaccination rate). The article shows that a majority of people currently in hospital with Covid have been vaccinated. It needs to be taken into account that Israel was also one of the earliest countries to start a mass vaccination process, so many of the elderly there had their shots like almost half a year ago, which means the efficacy of the vaccination may be waning. Anyway, this situation is definitely the driver in Israel's decision to give people a booster shot.
It seems the situation is getting bad worldwide but the vaccinated are doing better (at the moment). The Philippines is running out of nurses (where the lowest pay is in private hospitals!) and Iran is entering its fifth wave. On the plus side, there are antibody treatments being introduced and a few more drug trials. The world really needs to pull together on this one as this virus is not going away anytime soon.
I don't believe it will ever go away. Like the flu it will be around for ever just need to learn to live with it.
IMHO, the flu will always be here, of varying seriousness, with varying names. Over the years, we will hopefully learn to deal with it, as we have all "flu's." This one is very new, so people are not yet developing natural immunity, plus it is mutating into more serious stuff. We know this one is bad, it's killed huge numbers of people, the numbers are debatable. All we do know is that UN-vaccinated people are being hospitalized and dying more, althou again numbers are debatable. I'm guessing in a year or two, they will make a multi strain vax like they do now, maybe slip a covid vax into it to avoid the anti-life crazies. It WILL be an annual thing, like now. I know that we will have to figure out some way to avoid "lockdowns," otherwise, economies the world over will collapse.
Plagues caused by various forms of Yersinia pestis decimated the world in the past (possibly killing up to 60% of Europe's population) but now are very rare. These is a difference from Covid in that Yersinias are bacteria and so can be treated by antibiotics, thus helping to control outbreaks. No one knows the long-term future for Covid-19 or its variants - we only guess. It will be around for a while as vaccinating the world will take some time but, perhaps like Yersinia and influenza, it may cross species and then re-emerge into the human population in the future as sporadic outbreaks (by which time there should be better vaccines and possibly anti-viral drugs to control it). There is also the possibility that mutants could weaken and it dies out naturally. Until we see what happens over the next few years, we can only make guesses.
Nat as severe. The unvaxxed in the US are 5 times more likely to get infected, and 29 times more likely to be hospitalized. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e5.htm?s_cid=mm7034e5_w
Even with the sinovac with low efficacy (~60%), it has a 95% chance of keeping you OUT of the hospital. These figures are pre - Delta, not sure, but almost definitely will be less severe with ANY vaccine.
I've quoted a post from another forum below that was the result of their entire forum being banned. It seems relevant to all COVID discussion. "It's one thing to "deny covid" and it's quite another to say, for instance, that you are choosing natural immunity over a vaccine for a virus that has a 0.05% (less than 25 in 100,000) death rate for your age group. Source: cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html From the CDC, since February 2020, there have been 28,838,244 people aged 0-17 years infected by covid. Of those, 332 died. This is 0.001% or <1 in 100,000 people. From the CDC, since February 2020, there have been 60,461,355 people aged 18-49 infected by covid. Of those, 34,171 have died. This is 0.05% or 25 in 100,000 people. Is it really so bad to hold the opinion that we don't need to force medical vaccinations and or subjugate the outspoken because of this virus? Not one honest soul can look at these CDC numbers and tell me xxxxxx hasn't blown covid way out of proportion! It simply isn't that scary. People on xxxxx are so militant that if you don't devote your entire belief structure to the holy vaccine, they are frothing at the mouths. Medical decisions are a personal choice, and discussing your beliefs on the matter is not "covid denial". The slippery slope of "misinformation" aka "we don't like what you said." Death of 1000 cuts to freedom of speech online continues due to angry left-wing fascism." These percentages, the vaccine not preventing the spread of COVID, and the vaccinated still managing to catch COVID and in some cases die, are the reason a few are skeptical of the vaccine. They are applying "science" and making choices based on the data.
