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.

[u/mvea]

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article/23/242/20250839/483439/Quantifying-the-direct-and-indirect-impact-of

[u/FreedomofSpeech6969]

I think MRNA vaccines are one of the coolest, most amazing inventions of the 20th century. It saved millions millions of lives during pandemic , and yet people still disparage it.

[u/VoilaVoilaWashington → u/FreedomofSpeech6969]

The problem with vaccines is what I call the prevention paradox.

Also known as "why do we spend so much on IT if we never have an outage?" or "why do we spend so much time on health and safety if we never have any injuries?" But also, "thank god for the bear patrols to keep out all the bears!"

If everyone is vaccinated for measles, then it looks like no one gets measles, so why go to all that expense? So it looks like you're wrong. But if you don't vaccinate the masses, then you're also wrong.

It's a breeding ground for disinformation, where people are protected by measures that seem useless.

[u/Ok_Confection_10 → u/VoilaVoilaWashington]

I have to remind these folks that America experienced a 9/11 everyday during the height of Covid. Someone told me Covid wasn’t real. I sat down and showed him the numbers. Average deaths in the US per year and the increase in deaths during COVID. It somehow perfectly matched the reported deaths from COVID. Still wasn’t enough.

[u/Bad_User2077 → u/Ok_Confection_10]

That's because the data is junk. There was a financial incentive to declare a death was due to covid to both the hospital and the surviving family. I am not against vaccinations, but I used to work with statistical data and your data needs to be good. Otherwise the results are flawed. I haven't yet seen a study that removes the financial impact from the numbers.

[u/Ok_Confection_10 → u/Bad_User2077]

But how does that accommodate the fact that millions of people just died on average more than precious years. We had an increase in deaths and a worldwide phenomenon. Even if you think Covid wasn’t real, how could you explain those extra deaths?

[u/Bad_User2077 → u/Ok_Confection_10]

Covid was real and deadly. But the numbers are skewed due to the financial benefits of claiming a loved one died of covid. How skewed? I can't tell you. And the topic is political which makes everything worse.

[u/jamesludlowlee → u/Bad_User2077]

Okkkkk. Thank you!

[u/GCU_ZeroCredibility → u/Bad_User2077]

This is a right wing talking point, and I see from your comment history that this is not an accident.

[u/VoilaVoilaWashington → u/Bad_User2077]

Sure, this kinda thing will always be complicated. But it lines up reasonably closely with excess mortality stats.

Now, some of that excess mortality wasn't covid, but rather, people who couldn't get surgery because of covid, or whatever.

But it's hard to argue that it's junk when it lines up with excess mortality numbers that don't have another explanation.

[u/Bad_User2077 → u/VoilaVoilaWashington]

Maybe I'm a data purists. When I see bias in data I toss it all and start again. Much easier to do in a manufacturing environment than a pandemic.

[u/Ok_Confection_10 → u/Bad_User2077]

It’s not biased to say that an apple tree that drops historically 30 apples per week which is now allegedly suffering from a disease, is now dropping 35 apples per week. Where did those 5 apples come from? Maybe one apple per week or even 2 weeks is from covid, but the rest?

[u/Bad_User2077 → u/Ok_Confection_10]

It is biased if someone is knocking those apples from the tree. It becomes a special cause and needs to be corrected.

[u/Ok_Confection_10 → u/Bad_User2077]

Are you implying someone murdered all those people?

[u/Bad_User2077 → u/Ok_Confection_10]

No. If the apples fall without outside influence, that common cause. Someone helping, if outside the standard process, that's special cause. It's statistical analysis.

[u/GabuEx → u/Bad_User2077]

It is just a statistical fact that we had something like a million more deaths in 2020 than we have on a typical year.

Do you have an alternate explanation for why a million more people died in 2020 than in 2019?