What makes you think the vaccine is an extremely effective solution to lockdowns? There are now many examples of high-vaccination countries with the same rapid case count rises that were the excuse for lockdowns in the first place.
The vaccines are somewhat effective therapeutics whose population-level effects weaken quite a bit after 3-6 months.
Herd immunity of the (virtually no risk) under 60 group continues to be the only way out. I'm sorry that your "sacrifice" of masks, staying home, and getting the jab were not the heroic things you thought they were. But there weren't heroic at all. They meant nothing. This is all now very obvious from cross-sectional international data.
I only intimately know the numbers here in Ontario, and here I can see that the vaccines are extremely effective for the people who take them.
All through the last two months, case counts went up to 10, 11, 12 cases / 100k (high for us) for the unvaccinated. For the fully vaccinated they stayed under 2 / 100k.
Even clearer for hospitalization and ICU admission. In the middle of September, 4.7/100k hospitalization rate for the unvaccinated. For the fully vaccinated, 0.38/100k.
The issue isn't the ineffectiveness of the vaccines. It's the fact that there's still hundreds of thousands, millions, of people unvaccinated. And the virus ran like wildfire through them, despite the rest of us doing our part.
Herd immunity from natural exposure is dangerous and isn't going to happen. A year and a half on, only 4% of the population here has tested positive.
FWIW my parents in Alberta lost 4 friends/acquaintances to COVID just in the past month. Only 2 of them were over 65. All were unvaccinated, devoutly religious & conservative, and dogmatic about their antivax/anti-mask positions.
"Herd immunity from natural exposure is dangerous and isn't going to happen. A year and a half on, only 4% of the population here has tested positive."
That's because a lot of people have had it, never felt too bad, and never got tested while the virus was actively replicating in their body. This has been proven in randomized serological tests in many jurisdictions now.
That would show up in test positivity rates, and it has not. At least not here. The only time when test positivity rate deviated significantly from daily counts was in the first wave spring 2020 when testing infrastructure wasn't there yet.
I can't say anything about places in the US where it spread like crazy through the population in the first wave. But I've seen no studies to back up what you're saying here in Canada. Also various cities have been doing testing of sewer water for the virus, and the values have matched, roughly (and in advance), what has been seen in testing rates.
> What makes you think the vaccine is an extremely effective solution to lockdowns? There are now many examples of high-vaccination countries with the same rapid case count rises that were the excuse for lockdowns in the first place.
What are you talking about? Have you even looked at the data? Vaccines are overwhelmingly effective at reducing infection rate, hospitalizations and deaths. The latter two are down drastically among highly-vaccinated populations. And infections are only up because restrictions have been lifted.
Being able to achieve lockdown-era infection and death rates without a lockdown is pretty fucking spectacular.
> were not the heroic things you thought they were.
I don't think they're heroic. I'll stay home forever. As long as it takes. Was it worth it? Completely. You're clearly not aware of Canada's early vaccine shortage. Lockdowns worked perfectly until we were able to get most people vaccinated. Now we're just chasing the long tail.
The vaccines are somewhat effective therapeutics whose population-level effects weaken quite a bit after 3-6 months.
Herd immunity of the (virtually no risk) under 60 group continues to be the only way out. I'm sorry that your "sacrifice" of masks, staying home, and getting the jab were not the heroic things you thought they were. But there weren't heroic at all. They meant nothing. This is all now very obvious from cross-sectional international data.