Quote Originally Posted by hopelesslyoptimistic View Post
Separate issue I think WTF - Fauci was hauled before Congress I think and the accusation was his department was funding the research in Wuhan at the lab where some in the US believe the virus escaped from.

The questions were pointed but the responses were very evasive - again, it was often ever thus.

Summary of latest published research

Israel - naturally acquired immunity provides better protection than full vaccination.

Canada - published last week in the BMJ - full vaccination is much better than no protection at all

UK - published in BMJ - Pfizer and AZ don’t really stop transmission but do significantly protect the individual

UK published BMJ - risks of side effects from vaccines analysed and for most side effects not very different to the normal prevalence in the population as a whole. In any event for the unprotected the risks of those same conditions are way way highwr.

Ergo - COVID 19 will be around for a while as we can’t stop transmission.

Individual protection is key. If you have had COVID and recovered you will have good immunity but getting the vaccine will be better still and protect you even more. If you have the vaccine you are likely to COVID if you live as normally as allowed but the vaccine should stop you getting COVID badly (unless you have other risk factors) and when you get it once you recover you will be better protected.

If you are not naturally immune and unvaccinated you are taking bigger risk than you need to so just get vaccinated so you have as much protection as you can when you get exposed.

Testing those without symptoms will become
leas important - we don’t test people without flu for flu!
All seems logical to me.

I must admit that I wasn't aware that the US might have been (and might still be) funding dodgy research in this area outside of the US because, well, they won't allow it on US soil, but it doesn't really surprise me. More's the pity.