Originally Posted by
Bernard
What is the implication? That vaccinated people are more likely to be hospitalized? If 100% of your population is vaxed, guess what? 100% of the hospitalizations will be vaxed people. Instead of looking at number of both groups, should look at percentages of both groups. If 99% of the population is vaxed in a population of 1000 and 10% of them get hospitalized anyways, you'd have 100 hospitalized vaxed people. Meanwhile 1% of the population can be unvaxed and 100% of them can be hospitalized and that would just be 10 people. And then you can just say oh there more more vaxed people in the hospital than unvaxed people...but at the same time if you're unvaxed you have 100% of unvaxinated people ending up in the hospital. Idk the actual numbers so this is less so about actual numbers and moreso just how statistics can be pretty misleading. But a number I've heard thrown around is that unvaxed people are 11x more likely to be hospitalized from covid compared to someone vaxed.
Has there actually been studies as to whether or not getting covid from 1 strain can grant you immunitiy from all strains? Genuine question, because idk and I've heard differing thoughts. I figured it was like the common cold in that the virus just mutates and can reinfect you again (probably less likely than someone that has never been vaxed or infected, but possible nevertheless).
Covid mostly spreads through droplets that come out of peoples' mouths. Sure, hypothetically speaking in a laboratory setting if you had isolated covid virus you could probably pass it through a mask. However, in a real world setting, they mostly spread by water droplets and if the water droplets can't get into your system, then the virus will have a much lower chance of infecting you.
Vaxinated people and unvaxinated people have been shown to produce similar levels of virus in their noses and what not, true. However, vaxinated people recover a lot quicker than unvaxinated people. I don't know the exact numbers, but lets say a vaxinated person gets infected, and for 2 days, they don't have any symptoms while the virus is building up (but there's still a chance they can spread). Day 3 rolls around and they're coughing a bunch (high chance of spreading), but since they're vaxinated, they recover within 2 days and by day 5, they're no longer coughing and their virus levels are low again (low chance of spreading). Meanwhile if you're unvaxed, it starts the same, 2 days of no symptoms while virus builds. Day 3, you're coughing a bunch, but now instead of recovering within 2 days, it takes you 1 full week to fully recover. This increased window of time of possible spreading is what's crucial. The longer you're infected, the more people you can potentially spread to. But sure, at day 3 for both when both people vaxed and unvaxed are coughing, they are probably equally likely to be spreading the virus, sure.