But that is taking precautions. By the way...vaccines are immune support supplements... why do people keep focusing on catching covid even though they are vaxxed. Flu shots dont prevent you from catching the flu, the arm your immune system to fight the flu if you catch it. You dont get MMR vaccines to make sure you dont catch it, it is to kill it if you do catch it and make it nothing. With everyone vaccinated against MMR, the disease cannot thrive or spread so we have controlled, limited, rare outbreaks. The whole point was that with a new virus we are not armed to deal with it and that is why the first two waves were so deadly or led to so many hospitalizations. Vaccine was meant to build up the immune system faster than if we just let it spread unchecked so that it killed off the weakest immune victime and we all developed antibodies naturally. With a new virus there is no way the vaccine can tackle all the fast mutations since we dont even know how a new virus will mutate. We do know that over time the mutations that survive can be weaker and weaker as strong initial ones are beaten by the vaccine or kill the host. Thus what survives are the weaker strains over time. I understand why people did not want to take a new vaccine and I agree it should not be forced. But the message that a vaccine prevents you from getting something is ridiculous and flies in the face of immunology. The vaccine at its core creates immune cells in the body that can hunt the specific DNA of the virus. That is inside your body. There is no magic wall that prevents a virus from entering your body except creating your own barrier through separation, or washing hands before you touch open areas, or other infected people covering their mouths. A flu vaccine for example arms you for the season but in many cases you get a mild version because the body is not an instant virus fighter, it can take time to isolate nad kill the foreign body within your system. This is the problem with the media and the way vaccines were presented as a political tool.
That was the fault of Operation Warp Speed and we ALL know what administration was in charge of that including them saying it will be gone by Easter 2020 so that people can go to church on Easter. The next administration (the current one) took over and we then received better information that the vaccines "minimize" serious Covid illnesses and hospitalizations...less talk about "prevention" and more talk about reinfections (vaccinated and not vaccinated) because of the sub-variants. wrbtrader
The message was always muddled by politics and social media. We have had vaccines since we were all children and now suddenly everyone changed their tune on what a vaccine was and how it worked as though immunology went right out the window. I get the argument that this was too new a product not tested and people did not want to take the chance. That argument made perfect sense and I can respect that. Prior to covid we of course we had the group of anti vaxxers always about autism and child vaccines but science did enough to prove that was not true but they still push their garbage. This is the new world we live in
Just learning about this now https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...-reinfection/670485/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
I did wear masks in stores that required it,didn't want to be the guy or gal in store acting an ass because the business required it.But thats about it.
Stronger strains have stronger symptoms so we know we are sick and tend to isolate and stay home or away from family. Over time it makes sense the stronger strains spread less and less. Weaker strains give us maybe cold like sympotms and we also take precautions or we simply dont know we have it and continue as normal. BUt if normal is still a sense of being aware and clean and mostly vaxxed then even the weaker strains will get weaker. Symtoms and people's reactions are a significant reason over past year why we are seeing only weaker strains emerge. I think this will continue through the next cold/flu season again but much less than last December/January when it felt like everyone was catching it.
To be fair, vaccines prevented the transmission and infection of Covid very well until Omicron showed up. Under Delta (and earlier) the vaccinated breakthrough rate in the U.S. was a mere 0.56% -- a rate which is far below the vaccinated breakthrough rate of measles at over 3%. When Omicron showed up -- which is more infectious and very vaccine evasive (in regards to infection) -- the vaccinated breakthrough rate went way up. With BA.5 the effectiveness of vaccines to prevent infection is down at 12% -- which is still better than unvaccinated "natural immunity" with a 0% capability of preventing infections with Omicron. When Omicron specific boosters are available in the fall this situation will improve in regards to vaccinations preventing infection. Covid vaccine 66 per cent less effective at preventing infection than it was just two months ago, expert says As Covid cases hit new record in the UK the vaccine effectiveness has tumbled but they are still good at preventing infections from becoming dangerous https://inews.co.uk/news/science/covid-vaccine-less-effective-preventing-infection-1739071
Hope you are better soon Tony, when I got it at the very very beginning in Jan 2020 it was from being in the car with somebody ill. It wasn't officially in the country for another three months but it had every symptom and I had a touch of pre-diabetetic effects for months as my pancreatic cells were clearly hammered. I was OK by July-August 2020 six months after. I was convinced after that it's a matter of exposure intensity so very much happy to use the good masks and carefully. I remember malaria too well in Africa, a parasite organism of course but one could see how when people got it every two to three years on average in the local tribes the toll of the fevers and cell damage aged them hugely. From that I've been wary of what Covid could do to us over 15-20 years with repeat infections unless it downregulates. Anyway, I'm back in Colombia, I didn't bother flying the pond after visiting family in the States. There was nothing I could do in Romania for my friends in Ukraine at the moment and I have what seems to be a case of normal mild post-plane sniffles and quaranteening from the wife myself. If I get Covid though I'm quadruple vaccinated with three different vaccines we can throw our hands up haha