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Comment by nimbleal | Hacker News Reader

Do the vaccines have a significant enough impact on transmissibility for that to be true? My understanding is that, while they significantly improve instances of serious illness and death, the effect on transmission is limited (or at least not high enough for “eradication” to be on the cards).

All for greater support of less developed countries in terms of vaccine supplies, but not sure this is the argument for it.

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The most recent study that I’ve seen showed a 71% reduction in infection rates for unvaccinated people living with vaccinated people. That suggests a pretty strong transmissibility effect.

This study says much less than 71% reduction, 25% of vaccinated and 38% of unvaccinated people got Covid when living with an infected person.

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2638

35% reduction is still pretty good.

The question is — is it significant enough for:

a) eradication to be a possibility (intuitively, it would seem not); or, failing that

b) to lower the possibility of novel mutations emerging to a negligible level (I don’t have the knowledge to answer, so this is a genuine question, but again intuition would suggest not)

if, say, 99% of the population is vaccinated.

Wouldn't any kind of reduction be a good thing? Even if it just prevents severe illness / hospitalization by the stated amount I'd consider it a win.

Good thing, yes, but the parent argued omicron “happened because there isn’t enough vaccines in third world countries.”

I’m asking if that makes sense given the evidence, and commenting that my (lay) intuition says it isn’t.

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