What it does is train and prime your body's defenses so that they will be able to get the invaders under control and then eliminate them before they have done enough damage to make you sick (in most cases before you even notice that this is happening).
You can still pass the infection to other people while that is happening. You won't pass it as effectively as someone who is not vaccinated would, because your infection will be milder and you won't be producing as many copies of the virus to spread.
When enough people are vaccinated, and so are less effective at passing on an infection, the rate of spread should fall below the level needed for the pandemic to be self-sustaining.
A good way to think of it is that there are two reasons one might take a given protective measure from COVID: (1) to prevent yourself from getting sick, and (2) to prevent others from getting sick.
Getting vaccinated addresses #1. You should still mask and distance to address #2 until enough people are vaccinated.
I've done immunology research academically in the past, but not covid. I just see no reason to throw out everything we know just because covid is scary. And it is scary, but that's all the more reason to bring everything we know to the situation.
Look at what's happened in Israel. Most of their population has been vaccinated, and their transmission numbers have plummeted in response. That alone should tell you that the vaccine is effective.
This doesn't mean 100% immunity - Pfizer and Moderna decrease risk of transmission by 95%, and if you do get it, it's much more likely to be a mild form. That's why it's important that we still avoid high-risk gatherings. We have enough people in this country who aren't willing to get vaccinated that it will likely take longer to achieve herd immunity. I suspect there'll be a long tail to this pandemic, with pockets of the country still spreading it through 2022.
Google "Israel Covid Cases."
One March 14, the seven-day average was 2,486. As of April 12, the seven-day average is 222.
Israel surpassed 50 percent of its population with at least one dose on Feb. 24, 2021. Shortly after that, its cases dropped like a rock.
So, do vaccines work? While correlation does not equal causation, it's some pretty strong evidence that yes, the vaccines are working.
I have no idea if Israel is doing other things like masks, social distancing, and more in addition to vaccines.
Yes a new norm is required until it starts dying out or changes into something worse.
> Do the vaccines work or not
Yes [1]
> What is the reasoning we should avoid social gathering, indoor gathering, and using mask if we already got vaccinated?
Because we don't know how well COVID-19 vaccines keep people from spreading the disease. (from the article)
> Does this mean we will end up doing this until this empire's sunset?
No, what part of the article implies this?
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effective...
There are lots of things we don’t know. We don’t know if a supervolcano will blow next month and send the planet into a multi-year winter. Should we change our behavior today so that if that happens next month lives will be saved?
We don’t know and therefore we should do something is assuming the conclusion.