Iceland’s jump in cases began July 20th, over two weeks ago. No deaths from it at this point. Iceland has had one COVID-19 death all year. And that death was back in May.
Gibraltar’s case jump peaked July 22nd, over two weeks ago. It’s been coming down since then. And Gibraltar has had one death in March.
It’s funny how through most of last year, everyone here was screaming about how meaningless cases are and that the only important metrics were hospitalizations and deaths. But now that vaccines are out, people against the vaccines (which really puts you in a position of being pro-virus) can’t stop talking about cases. Hospitalizations and deaths? Irrelevant. It’s all about them cases!
Prior to the Delta variant, it was found that the Pfizer vaccine blocked 94% of asymptomatic cases and 97% of symptomatic cases (data from Israel). The original advertised efficacy (before Delta variant existed) was 95%. Even if we just talked about cases, 95% efficacy would yield 5% breakthrough cases, or 8.25 million of the 165 million vaccinated in the US. Do we have 8.25 million breakthrough cases? No, we have about 125,000.
As for hospitalizations and deaths, I can go down the list, state by state. ~97% of the hospitalizations are all unvaccinated. ~99% of the deaths are all unvaccinated. Meanwhile, 80% of the over-65 crowd (the ones most likely to have severe COVID-19 and die from it) are vaccinated. If the vaccine did nothing, 80% of those who are in hospitals and dying from COVID-19 should be vaccinated. Except the exact opposite is being observed in literally every single state in the United States. Red states, blue states; doesn’t matter. They’re all seeing the same results.
So when you say “you’re going to find the COVID vax position less and less tenable”, I can’t help but laugh. People point to these places that are highly vaccinated, but all they can point at are cases. People point to the US and all they can point at are cases, because as soon as I look in a hospital or a morgue, it’s filled with the unvaccinated.
Less tenable? Every day brings another mountain of data reinforcing how critically important the vaccines are to protecting human life. THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!
Sorry, that should have said Gibraltar has had one death SINCE March. That dead was August 4th. 20% of Gibraltar’s COVID-19 cases are among the unvaccinated (the 99% applies only to the people who are eligible for it), and I have no data on whether the person who died was vaccinated or not. But it remains the only COVID-19 death in Gibraltar since March.