Can we talk about place like Israel and Gibraltar?

[Squleamish]

Why do these extremely highly vaccinated places have such high Covid rates? It's worrying me - how are we ever going to get out of this?

We've seen it with places like the Seychelles as well, which is very highly vaccinated.

Makes me a bit despondent.

Anyone else?

Are they all dying? Surely that's more to the point...

The vaccine will not eliminate transmission or infection, it does significantly reduce the risk of death or serious illness. High rates of infection are not necessarily a problem, serious illness is. When it comes to coronaviruses in general, of which SARSCov2 is just one, there are others in circulation within the human population, they make up some of the viruses which are classed as the common cold, this version will be no different given time.

Delta got there.

We already have it.

Gibraltar and the Seychelles both have populations smaller than many English towns. A single outbreak linked to one public event would have a much bigger impact on their numbers than on our national numbers (or even Israel’s).

Being fully vaccinated reduces but doesn’t prevent transmission

The vaccines work by reducing risk of serious illness.

If what is circulating is basically a cold, what’s the problem?

Israel vaccinated earlier and stuck to the shorter window between vaccines which was officially recommended at that time.
Fortuitously, we introduced a longer gap between first and second doses to allow more people to start receiving vaccines, then it later transpired that this gave better protection.

For that reason I don’t think our situation is comparable to Israel.

Because when you have high percentages of people vaccinated and not getting ill/dying, looking purely at cases is pointless.

@HermioneWeasley

Being fully vaccinated reduces but doesn’t prevent transmission

The vaccines work by reducing risk of serious illness.

If what is circulating is basically a cold, what’s the problem?

Good point.

But I thought they said cases mattered because the more cases, the more variants emerge? Wasn't this a large reason we vaccinated all of us rather than just the vulnerable? But the country who's a few months ahead of us with vaccines has these record breaking rates...? I don't get it.

If fear of variants developing were a reason for vaccinating as many people as possible, the JCVI wouldn’t be faffing about so much on whether or not to vaccinate 12-15 year olds. So many people have been vaccinated because the idea there are clearly delineated groups of “the vulnerable” and the “not vulnerable” is ridiculous. Society as a whole is vulnerable to uncontrollable viruses that cause severe enough illness to disrupt healthcare systems, children’s education, and cause business disruption; the elderly are more at risk of dying; middle aged women seem to be most at risk from long covid; specific conditions increase potential vulnerability; and apparently random people turn out to be vulnerable - so only vaccinating “the vulnerable” is a fantasy, given that you only know who was vulnerable after the event.