If I'm not mistaken, herd immunity is something that's achieved over time through natural infection and vaccine use. As many have mentioned on here, most people didn't have access to the vaccine until mid-April because of age restrictions initially and vaccine availability. That depended on the state you lived in and how much of the vaccine they received and could distribute.

What's also scary is that they won't admit their ignorance or uncertainty about the effectiveness of the vaccine. My daughter went to her hairdresser yesterday and the woman was wearing a mask. She knew she had been fully vaccinated for awhile and asked her why. She said she'd been exposed to COVID and had taken two tests which were negative but it was an extra precaution out of concern for her clients, which was nice of her.

Both her parents, who had been fully vaccinated since March, got COVID and her father is very ill and might have to be hospitalized. Her siblings also had it along with other family members. So does the vaccine really work against the variants? It'd be nice if someone without a vested interest, political or otherwise, would tell us. Maybe they have but we don't want to listen?

Delta IS BOTH more contagious AND more DEADLY. 97% of all CV hospitalizations are among the UNvaccinated. There are now 5 CV pediatric patients at Advent Health in Orlando. There are 49 CV patients in our local hospital. They are ALL unVACCINATED! If someone could interview them, I am convinced that they WISHED that they had gotten vaccinated - some MAY (?) have tubes into their throats and would have difficulty speaking. Good luck to everyone that is UNvaccinated!

Depends on what you mean by "really work". It seems most people think "really works" mean 100% effective, completely prevents any infections.

NO vaccine is 100%. effective. The current vaccine was developed (designed) to fight the original COVID-19. It was very very effective against the original COVID-19. There is no doubt, there are countless studies by professionals that actually work in the field of epidemics and pandemics that show this They do not show 100% effectiveness, but very close.

The variant happened. No need to point fingers about why, it happened, now we need to deal with that DELTA variant. The initial studies (which are limited in scope - for many reasons so far) show that DELTA is very much more contagious than the original virus. So, many more people will get it. Initial indications are the DELTA, a new virus that can infect some people that have been vaccinated for the original virus. It appears the vaccine is about 80% effective, meaning about 20% of the people that have been vaccinated may get the DELTA. But, that is very preliminary data and should be taken with a grain of salt. There seems to be no doubt that some people that have been vaccinated can be infected by the DELTA variant. So, CDC recommended returning to wearing masks until we have more data to show exactly how effective the vaccine is.

BUT, so far all indications are that the vaccine is very effective in preventing serious symptoms and/or hospitalizations in people that become infected with the DELTA variant. Of the people in many (most?) hospitals with COVID now, MOST (over 90%) are unvaccinated.

I can't find a number from any "credible source" of how many of the people who are fully vaccinated and get DELTA and die. It is generally estimated as very few. most that die from DELTA are unvaccinated.

a gentle reminder - (from another post elsewhere)

Imagine being born in 1900.
When you are 14 years old
World War I begins
and ends when you are 18,
with 22 million dead.
Shortly after the world pandemic,
flu called ′′ Spanish ",
killing 50 million people.
You go out alive and free,
and you are 20 years old.
Then at the age of 29 you survive the global economic crisis that started with the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange causing inflation, unemployment and hunger.
Nazis come to power at 33.
You are 39 when world war 2. begins
and it ends when you are 45 during the Holocaust (Shoah), 6 million Jews die.
There will be a total of more than 60 million dead.
When your 52th Korean war begins.
When you are 64, the Vietnam war begins and ends when you are 75.
A baby born in 1985 believes his grandparents have no idea how hard life is,
and survived several wars and disasters.
A boy born in 1995 and 25 today believes that the end of the world when his Amazon package takes more than three days to arrive or if he doesn't exceed 15 likes for his posted photo on Facebook or Instagram...
In 2020., many of us live in comfort, have access to various sources of entertainment at home and often have more than needed.
But people complain about everything.
They have electricity, phone, food, hot water and a roof over their heads.
None of this existed.
But humanity survived much more serious circumstances and never lost the joy of life.

Maybe it's time to be less selfish, stop whining and crying

Roughly half the US population has been vaccinated so any random exposure would get to about the same number of vaccinated as unvaccinated. Hospitalizations have increased greatly in the last month and according to all reports, more than 90% of those hospitalized were unvaccinated. Something is keeping the vaccinated from becoming sick and hospitalized.

So, can I take that to mean you are in favor of tens of millions of people, almost none of whom have the expertise to make an intelligent decision, should just make up their own vaccination policy? And that our government has no responsibility to protect the public safety? Welcome to the U.S.A. (United State of Anarchy)

So, it's up to you to decide if your children get vaccinated. You know it's only polio.

The fact that you can sneeze and kill someone makes it the government's business. it is called public safety. You do NOT have the right to make decisions that put others' lives at risk.

Some good need here...

"Fortunately, there's a built-in impediment to what might otherwise be a potentially endless march toward ever-more-dangerous variants: The virus will at some point run out of ways to become nastier, thanks to the relatively simple structure of the spike protein, which can only be mutated in a few hundred different ways, most of which won't make the virus more harmful. "There are only so many changes that can be made to the spike protein without making it non-functional," says Vail. "I'd be cautious about saying that it can keep mutating indefinitely."

Another big break: Unlike the flu virus, SARS-CoV-2 doesn't have a structure that lends itself to mixing and matching genetic material between different variants. That "recombination" capability is what helps make the flu a moving target each year for vaccines."

I completely disagree with EVERY WORD!

But, the point IS all these UNvaccinated will NOT have mild symptoms. Some of them will be tortured by the disease in a hospital and then some of these will DIE. How can that be thought of as a good thing? They are our friends and neighbors. They have occupations and skills that benefit all of us. There are also moral issues in wanting herd immunity happening from suffering versus a vaccine. Sorry, I don't understand!

Totally Totally agree!:clap2:

another so-called village expert speaks

I am sorry, but those facts and sentiments are coming from some dark cave of strange dark media speculation. I am sad to see such words echoing through a basically normal place like TV Land. It is disappointing.

Well, I cared enough to read your post...........but not enough to buy you lunch.

Did you read my post? About the couple who got COVID even though they are fully vaccinated and one of them is seriously ill? There will be no true herd immunity as long as there are variants emerging. There's one variant here already and others are on the way. We might ALL get COVID eventually, vaccinated or not.

It is possible that CV goes away in April................April 2067

Well, I know for a fact that people under 65, but working in hospitals locally got vaccinated in January. Also, rich privileged people at a fancy resort in Miami near the Keys of various ages got vaccinated in January. Please feel free to check the Miami newspapers about this.

If everyone eligible to get vaccinated (with NO, ZERO anti-vaxxers) had STARTED getting vaccinated in April the US would have been near zero hospitalizations by mid-July. And we could have avoided the Delta variant in the US. Then we could have started helping other parts of the world. Incidentally, Japan and Australia were handling the Virus pretty well EARLY ON before any vaccine simply because they had the willpower nationwide to do it.

I am basically saying that if the US had the national will to do it, we would have "herd immunity" by now. And I am processing why we did NOT have that unified willpower. We did have it for WW2 - remember!

97% of all US Doctors have gotten their vaccines. That IS a pretty powerful fact!

The vaccines were designed to primarily prevent hospitalization and deaths - NOT to prevent cases. so far, I would have to applaud that design criterion.

"Whatever doesn't kill you, mutates gets stronger, and again tries to kill you".......some GREAT philosopher

Funny, that’s revisionist history. Because that’s not what the public was originally told…

Short answer: Maybe, and maybe not. A ton of suppositions in that post

There will be no herd immunity as long as the virus has ripe lovely non-immune hosts in which to mutate. Herd immunity is -most efficiently- achieved via vaccination.

Sadly, too many people reject science. They're fine with putting up a wall to stop immigrants (and the wall won't actually stop them) but they're not fine putting up a wall to stop the virus. Walls are only useful for people they consider undesirable.

The actual number is 96% and that was based on a survey of 301 doctors…
Hardly representative of ALL US DOCTORS…

AMA survey shows over 96% of doctors fully vaccinated against COVID-19 | American Medical Association

AMA survey shows over 96% of doctors fully vaccinated against COVID-19 | American Medical Association

Many of the vaccinated that have bad symptoms or get hospitalized have been found to be immunocompromised. It is a VERY small number and has no significance when 97% of Doctors ARE vaccinated and advising US people to get vaccinated. Other countries are begging to get the vaccine!

Hate to say it but I have to agree.

What was the design of the survey?? Is it statistically significant? I don't know.

However, if it was a simple "are you vaccinated?" survey, the results might be quite biased. Every doctor(medical doctors, not the pretenders or quacks) knows damn well he/she should be vaccinated. So if he/she wasn't, they might not own up to it.

Also, in my experience, you can't get 96% of doctors to agree on whether the Earth is round, much less get vaccinated.

I never claimed to be a Medical Scientist or a Doctor with a good golf swing. I am merely a person that has the time to watch and read the news and some science journals. I then try to write in my own words what I have absorbed - to the best of my ability. None of us, except maybe Blue fire remnants, is perfect. A large % of what is written on this forum is opinion. I don't think in terms of links - I do NOT have a photographic memory. I try to give an opinion that may (?) or may NOT point others away from purposeful disinformation and/or propaganda. A current Medical Scientist would, obviously, NOT be interested in my opinions on the future trajectory of the DELTA or other variants. However, it IS possible (?) that some others might be? Thank you!

So "doctors" are a separate category from health care workers. Because that was one of the groups identified that weren't getting vaccinated at a high rate. I'm not too surprised because many don't even want the seasonal flu vaccines. Maybe they know something we don't?

You're wrong on all counts. The people who are "rejecting" science are not the ones who want to put up a wall to stop people from entering the country illegally. The facts are there along with the statistics but you don't want to believe them because it doesn't fit your overall world view/narrative.

Science, as it happens, is currently falling on its face. The constant shifting of opinions, contradictory information,the back-tracking, the ever-changing directives and mandates, etc. They're making it easy to distrust them, and in turn, write off the vaccines.

Methinks you may have got the wrong take home message from my post......

I'll leave the replies to others----way too much low hanging fruit here:1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:

(Once again) I'll bite...

Ivermectin????
 

Ivermectin was what I wormed my horses with, what kind of doctor prescribes ivermectin for Covid????

Yes, sometimes people don't take the advice of their doctors and they die. It happens every day. COVID is no different. Also, you mentioned "friends and neighbors" being affected, but again, we don't have control over others' lives. You can only try and gently persuade them because anything more forceful doesn't work. People get angry as it is a personal decision.

Case in point, I have a close friend who's 80. She has a myriad of underlying conditions/health problems (double cancer survivor, half a lung, heart problems) and if she got COVID she'd be a goner. She stubbornly refuses to get the vaccine because not enough is known about it and she thinks there might be unforeseen side effects. I tried to explain that isn't a smart gamble to take at her age, and getting a vaccine is the prudent thing to do. Surprisingly, some of her friends in her age group don't want to get the vaccine either, and both her son and daughter (in their 50's) aren't vaccinated. It didn't help matters when she told her doctor she wanted to wait until more was known about the vaccines and he agreed with her (there's one of your unvaccinated doctors right there!).

Bottom line is, we got into a slight argument about it as I kept trying to convince her but in the end I had to stop or it might have ruined our friendship. You can't save people from themselves. You can try, but ultimately they are in control of their own destiny.

You keep citing these "facts" with nothing to back them up...

As of 08/02/2021, the fully vaccinated rate in the UK was 58.1%. Nowhere NEAR 85%

uk vaccination rates - Google Search

Japan, who's mask compliance is at 98%, is currently experiencing its highest numbers of positive covid tests EVER...

japan covid cases - Google Search

Should I also repeat myself (once again) about the low number of nurses and other hospital employees?

Oh, and did you not read that that "poll" came from a sample of only 300 doctors?

Completely false...

I mentioned about the health care workers (nurses, etc.) not wanting to get the vaccine and a poster thought I equated that with the stats on the doctors, which was not my intention. I merely wanted to point out that nurses and other health workers were not on board with the vaccinations and perhaps that was telling in some way.