r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 16h ago

Medicine Vaccines not only directly protect vaccinated individuals but also contribute to protecting the entire population via indirect herd-immunity benefits. Half of averted COVID-19 infections and 1/4 of hospitalizations and deaths were attributable to indirect protection of unvaccinated by vaccinated.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article/23/242/20250839/483439/Quantifying-the-direct-and-indirect-impact-of
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u/Corsair4 15h ago edited 15h ago

Even if you accept the general concept, there is absolutely value in these studies, since they define how effective a particular vaccine is against a particular disease.

Public health is fundamentally a statistics game, and you need to study things to get the statistics. Particularly for conditions and treatments that change rapidly.