Will you take an approved COVID-19 vaccine?

I never mentioned herd immunity. Even without herd immunity, the more people who are vaccinated, the less likely it is that someone gets it.

Also, vaccines won't be recommended to children unless the benefit/risk balance implies that the benefits outweigh the risks for the children, regardless of reducing the spread. Therefore, even if everything I said above was pointless, kids should still take the vaccine for their own sake. As medical experts believe all unvaccinated people will eventually get Covid, kids should also get vaccinated for their sake alone because the small likelihood of them getting very sick with Covid is still greater than the even smaller likelihood of them getting very sick with a vaccine. If the trials do not demonstrate that, then kids will not be recommended to take a vaccine and you then have nothing to decide.

When you say you're not happy with boosters, are you happier with the alternative of cases rising as in Israel?

New study published in the Lancet points to Vaccines reducing the risk of getting Long Covid by half

Vaccines Slash Risk Of Long Covid From Breakthrough Infections, Study Finds

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/09/01/vaccines-slash-risks-of-serious-illness-hospitalization-and-long-covid-for-breakthrough-coronavirus-infections-study-confirms/?sh=2affd7286a20

Well that's another big positive in the vaccines column imo

Just heard an interesting quote from an infectious disease expert being interviewed “ The description of Covid as a pandemic must now be qualified, it is a pandemic in the unvaccinated, they are now the people getting sick, dying, and spreading the disease”

So, let the virus spread, overwhelm the hospitals and people die is the best way to go.

Actually you posted in response to me. And I did not "make light" of anything despite you claiming three or four times that I did. I did the opposite. I expressed my deep hope that the few vocal vaccine hesitant people I know (thankfully very few) are not going to follow a similar story arc as the picture I posted. This is not making light - it is expressing the hope that a tragedy reported in the media is not one I see repeated in my own life. I hope I trust we all share.

I also did not make the implication you have put into my mouth either. I literally said no such thing at all. In fact I agree with you about "being cocky". But the only person who was unfortunately cocky was the person who died in the aforementioned tragedy with his "Lab rat" comment. It was a petty throw away judgemental comment that was entirely unwarranted and unbecoming. The man certainly did not deserve to suffer or die for it however. I wish his remaining family and friends all the best.

I too - like others - would like to see your workings and figures and sources here though. Whatever the source is for your comments I think the most important word in your claim is "present". A word I would hope the source(s) normalize for. Because I do not assume - nor should we - that one presenting group is the same as the other when we evaluate the "proportions" of terminal cases.

If vaccination reduces viral loads and as such transmission rates and power - and it reduces cases of presentable illness and the veracity of that illness - and it reduces the time it takes the body to fight off infection - the fact that despite all that a Vaccinated person is still "presenting" suggests that their cases are more serious for whatever reason (unknown) than an unvaccinated person "presenting". So if 1000 vaccinated people presented and 1000 unvaccinated people presented - then my guess from the outset would automatically be to assume there would be more deaths in group A for that reason alone. Put another way - if two people presented with identical variants - symptoms - and severity and the only difference is one is vaccinated and other not - then I would not consider it a safe assumption at all to treat the two cases as identical. And if for some magical reason I had to choose which one to treat first - I would be going with the vaccinated one for this reason if I had no other data and had to make a call.

There is also the idea that at risk people may be prioritized for vaccination too. That will skew the data. Because the aforementioned under 50s who are vaccinated will contain a higher proportion of those risk patients than the aforementioned under 50s who were not vaccinated. Again therefore for this reason too if 1000 vaccinated people presented and 1000 unvaccinated people presented - and I had no other data to work with - then my guess from the outset would automatically be to assume there would be more deaths in group A. Unless your source normalizes for that.

So basically if the vaccines are doing what the people supporting their use are claiming they are doing - I would actually _ expect _ the statistic you are offering rather than be surprised by it. But there is a lot to normalize for there before the statistics give a true picture so I would need to evaluate your entire source myself before I really comment either way.

So at the moment looking at the death statistics solely among the "presenting" population would strike me as a red herring statistic from which we can garner little usable or relevant data, conclusions or even mildly interesting talking points. In isolation it is an entirely useless data point. It might become more illuminating with significantly more context and up and down stream data points - but on it's own I see no utility or relevance here.

The 10% not vaxxed are mostly young. The numbers not vaccinated in age groups susceptible to to hospitalisation are minuscule. That they make up 50% of hospitalisations is a powerful testimony of the effectiveness of vaccines.

It must also be pointed out in the very old and extremely vulnerable, many people are now actually getting the chance to go to hospital whereas previously their chances were so slim they were kept in their care setting.