48 test positive for Covid on world’s biggest cruise ship (CNN, Dec ’21,”95% on board were fully vaccinated. Of the people who’ve since tested positive, 98% were fully vaccinated. The total number of cases amounted to 0.78% of the on board population.”)
Points worth noting:
cases /= serious illness
cases /= death
unclear: whether outbreaks originated from an unvaccinated person or a vaccinated person
more clear: vaccinated people can spread the virus to each other
CONTENTIOUS GROUND: whether vaccinated people who contract the virus help speed/spread mutations and variants
neither Cornell nor Royal Caribbean could promise a fully vaccine-exclusive area (the linked article notes that the unvaccinated on board the Royal Caribbean ship were children younger than 12, fwiw), but this is about as exclusive as one can reasonably get
someone’s going to say “what about a walled city,” but that is literally (figuratively) what a cruise ship is [edit: ports of call could change this equation, curious whether the outbreak originated on or off ship]
The problem with the real-world situation in Dec 2021 is that we don’t currently have an effective vaccine that is FDA-approved (by effective, I mean that can stop the virus in its tracks, i.e. can bring R_0 well below 1) against the Omicron variant, since Omicron has a large degree of escape from the immunity associated with previous variants.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a vaccine against Omicron already exists, and I certainly expect it to be developed well within next 2 months if it doesn’t exist yet. The main obstacle (as it was with the original vaccine) is to pass regulatory hurdles.
I’m trying to remember if there was an outbreak in a vaccine-mandated zone with Delta. We know that vaccinated people could both contract and spread Delta, and that it can transmit within a “fully-immunized household” (Bloomberg, October ’21).
Searching “college campuses Delta outbreak” doesn’t get me any stories like Cornell’s, at least not on the first page of Google; there are stories of Delta spreading through a relatively isolated facility (nursing homes, prisons, etc.) with caveats that not everyone in that facility is vaccinated.
The lack of news articles describing “Delta outbreak in fully-vaccinated space” may also reflect the time rollout of the vaccine; maybe there weren’t as many “fully-vaccinated” companies, campuses, cruises, etc. when Delta was around.
The larger point is that if vaccines (for COVID or any future pandemic) worked as sterilizing vaccines, you wouldn’t need vaccine-only zones—right?
We have existing examples of vaccine-only zones; here’s how they’re going so far:
Cornell University Shuts Down Campus Due to COVID Outbreak, Despite Vaccine Mandate—Here’s How That Can Happen (Health.com, Dec ’21, this story was reported in many major outlets)
48 test positive for Covid on world’s biggest cruise ship (CNN, Dec ’21,”95% on board were fully vaccinated. Of the people who’ve since tested positive, 98% were fully vaccinated. The total number of cases amounted to 0.78% of the on board population.”)
Points worth noting:
cases /= serious illness
cases /= death
unclear: whether outbreaks originated from an unvaccinated person or a vaccinated person
more clear: vaccinated people can spread the virus to each other
CONTENTIOUS GROUND: whether vaccinated people who contract the virus help speed/spread mutations and variants
neither Cornell nor Royal Caribbean could promise a fully vaccine-exclusive area (the linked article notes that the unvaccinated on board the Royal Caribbean ship were children younger than 12, fwiw), but this is about as exclusive as one can reasonably get
someone’s going to say “what about a walled city,” but that is literally (figuratively) what a cruise ship is [edit: ports of call could change this equation, curious whether the outbreak originated on or off ship]
The problem with the real-world situation in Dec 2021 is that we don’t currently have an effective vaccine that is FDA-approved (by effective, I mean that can stop the virus in its tracks, i.e. can bring R_0 well below 1) against the Omicron variant, since Omicron has a large degree of escape from the immunity associated with previous variants.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a vaccine against Omicron already exists, and I certainly expect it to be developed well within next 2 months if it doesn’t exist yet. The main obstacle (as it was with the original vaccine) is to pass regulatory hurdles.
I’m trying to remember if there was an outbreak in a vaccine-mandated zone with Delta. We know that vaccinated people could both contract and spread Delta, and that it can transmit within a “fully-immunized household” (Bloomberg, October ’21).
Searching “college campuses Delta outbreak” doesn’t get me any stories like Cornell’s, at least not on the first page of Google; there are stories of Delta spreading through a relatively isolated facility (nursing homes, prisons, etc.) with caveats that not everyone in that facility is vaccinated.
The lack of news articles describing “Delta outbreak in fully-vaccinated space” may also reflect the time rollout of the vaccine; maybe there weren’t as many “fully-vaccinated” companies, campuses, cruises, etc. when Delta was around.
The larger point is that if vaccines (for COVID or any future pandemic) worked as sterilizing vaccines, you wouldn’t need vaccine-only zones—right?