Thread by @buzzhollandermd

This Lancet study from the UK has fueled a lot of “gotchas,” only some of which are appropriate. It’s interesting, though:
thelancet.com/journals/lanin…
The take-away: vaccinated ppl with “breakthrough” infections were as likely to spread to household members as unvaccinated ppl.

Take w/ a grain of salt, as even a smart, prospective study like this cannot avoid major confounders, esp when this small (163 cases, 232 household contacts). The index cases captured in this study might not represent average folks.
Still - this is as good as we’ve got.

I feel like some public health voices looked at the data from Singapore and N Illinois with rose-colored glasses and decided infected vaccinated ppl have lesser viral loads or less viable virus to spread; that’s not how I saw the same data.
ITRW, this study suggests the contrary.

Relevance?
Those who support covid vaccine mandates to “protect society” must acknowledge that protection against transmission is mostly limited to effectiveness vs all infection, and *that* protection is high only briefly before falling. 3 mo was avg time post-vax in this study!

However, the “gotcha” crowd has to acknowledge that overall infections ARE reduced by vaccination, by a lot for at least 3-6 months, and by at least a substantial hunk beyond that. @sailorrooscout addressed that in a thread, perfectly summarized here:

Very similar is the ability of vaccines to “prevent” long covid; this recent preprint implied no protection for vaccinated people w/ a breakthrough infection:
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
However, no infection=no long covid. Still benefit in this realm, just for a limited time period.

I realize I am in a minority here,
but I find the argument so utterly convincing that the covid vaccines offer clear and substantial benefit to the vast majority of people;
but the argument to mandate them so transparently weak.