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?
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?