And given the spread of omicron, odds are that almost everyone will get exposed. I've had two near misses this week alone...
Even at the anecdotal level everyone I know is vaccinated and no one is long term ill from it.
I suspect the incessant querying from bad faith actors is more of an ideology than a true wish to seek an actual answer.
Without breaking that down by age group, we are no better informed. Emotive words like "staggering" without mentioning the data, is unhelpful.
It's common knowledge that elderly and unhealthy/vulnerable represent most ICU beds. I think it was Italy or Greece who have mandated the jab for over 60's. This sounds like an expert has formulated a policy that matches the challenge: that the 60+ age group are filling the hospital beds. If only more countries could formulate measured, level-headed responses to match the reality of the pandemic.
It's not commonly known whether younger unvaccinated people who end up in ICU, are there because they're unvaccinated vs existing health condition. That comes down to individual hospitals and doctors reporting efforts. What we hear in media reports is a broad mashing of data, reduced down to an oversimplified message that unvaccinated people are filling the hospitals. When in fact, it's more likely that unvaccinated people from a specific age and health status group, are filling hospital beds.
Age group impacts illness and hospitalization but not tremendously so. Deaths under 65 weren't tracked b/c signal to noise ratio didn't meet their criteria.
I think we need numbers, no anectotes :)
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
From what I can hear in Canada, unvaccinated make about 10% of population and about 50% hospitalizations, that makes the vaccine reduce your chances by about 5x. But they are already vanishingly low for young healthy people. So what if we vaccinated the older folks, promoted healthy BMI, and created 20% more hospital beds? Or how does a vaccine 1 year ago compare to natural immunity from 1 year go? Or how much exactly of the taxpayer money is going to the Big Pharma as opposed to building new hospitals and training new staff?
<< From what I can hear in Canada, unvaccinated make about 10% of population and about 50% hospitalizations, that makes the vaccine reduce your chances by about 5x
When 50 % of the total hospitalizations are 10 % of the entire population(unvaccinated pop.), the vaccinated 90 % need to be reduced to an equal 10 % too(1/9 * 90 % = 10 %), which means it reduces your chance by 9x not 5x
So, in my mind, the amount of guesswork that's currently on the table warrants a tax-paid advertising campaign, but all censorship and forced vaccination measures do much more harm than good.
> Or how much exactly of the taxpayer money is going to the Big Pharma as opposed to building new hospitals and training new staff?
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your overall premise, but the idea that politicians in countries round the world can/will just snap their fingers and magic new hospitals, staff, and infrastructure into existence seems idealistic in the extreme.
We’re living in a world where the opposite is true: for a variety of reasons (depending on the country you examine) hospitals are run close to capacity during normal times - which is why they struggle so much when there’s a new wave of COVID infection. This seems to be the economic reality of healthcare, whether you’re talking about successful ‘socialised’ models, successful privatised models, or failing examples of any kind.
Many staff are exhausted, demoralised, and underpaid, and there’s a trend to people leaving the profession - and there’s a 3 to ~7-10 year lead time to deliver a new meaningfully-trained healthcare professional.
Choosing to change this trend around the world, versus a few bucks spent per person on a vaccine every year or so…?