@MarshaBradyo
Imo if you’re going to make strong statements re chaos
Back it up on here or post that kind of thing where it doesn’t matter
OK - I'm sorry I was abrupt, but sometimes it gets incredibly frustrating making the same point over and over again, to constantly face exactly the same question.
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Vaccines reduce risk, they do not eliminate it. Now you may argue that 95%+ reduction in deaths is almost elimination and I'd agree - that was the case it seemed with Alpha, but Delta is different (less) and the next variant will be less still. I'm not going to quantify how far because we don't know but every 1% reduction in efficacy mounts up to a lot of deaths when extrapolated nationally.
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Not everyone will be vaccinated - many are refusing their second jab and others are refusing both. Now arguably you can say it's their choice, their fault, but it will have consequences for the health care system who still have to treat them and when they do, it ties up resources that could be spent treating other conditions.
Finally - infection numbers - so far in the UK, in each wave roughly 10% of the population has contracted the virus - the epidemic never reached potential due to lockdowns. A %, let's call it H of those infected I, were hospitalised.
Number hospitalised = H * I
If we don't use restrictions to curb the next wave then I will be much higher. How much higher exactly is hard to say. It depends on the extent to which vaccination prevents infection with Delta (currently uncertain), but 50% infected is quite believable if we don't reimpose restrictions that is. As well as this, we believe the absolute risk from Delta of hospitalisation is more than double what it was for Alpha.
Now let's factor in a protection factor of 90% for vaccines, but reduce it to account for the number not sufficiently vaccinated - I'll pluck 80% out of the air here - it's not a figure I want to fight over, and it's a gross simplification, but it should be good enough to give an idea here.
So now we have I (infected population) has increased 5 fold (I5)
H (the risk of an unvaccinated, infected person being hospitalised) has more than doubled - let's just say H2
Vaccine protection to be added - a 5-fold reduction
New number hospitalised = 5I * 2H / 5
Simpified this is I * 2H or twice as many people could be hospitalised in the event of a massive third wave as were in wave #1 or 2.
Now this won't actually happen of course, because whatever the plan is, once those numbers start climbing, even if the government doesn't act, people WILL act. It will be the worst thing actually because it will give rise to the belief that vaccines don't work and that the government has lost control - THAT's why I said chaos.