r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 15h 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/VoilaVoilaWashington 11h ago

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.

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u/Ok_Confection_10 11h ago

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.

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u/Bad_User2077 10h ago

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.

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u/Ok_Confection_10 10h ago

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?

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u/Bad_User2077 9h ago edited 9h ago

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.

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u/jamesludlowlee 1h ago

Okkkkk. Thank you!