Nobody ever said that vaccines were perfect and would stop transmission of the virus completely. The data is in and they don't work 100%. Even if I am vaccinated there is a chance I will catch the virus.
However, if you don't have the vaccine the chances of you catching the disease are higher. The illness is likely to be more severe and you the chances you need hospital treatment and may die are also a lot higher. So what?
If you choose to be unvaccinated there are two things you do:
1. You increase the chance of the disease spreading because you are more likely to catch it. That is not good for the community;
2. You are more likely to use up a hospital bed for treatment because the symptoms are more severe. A hospital bed that could be used for somebody with a serious illness like cancer.
Think of it like this. If you had the vaccine you may not have needed hospital treatment when you caught the disease. Because you took up a hospital bed in intensive care, a road accident victim or cancer patient was unable to get the treatment they needed and died. This isn't hypothetical, it is actually happening. Here is a doctor talking about turning away patients
"On Aug. 3, I received a call from a hospital that does not have a cancer program. Such calls are routine at the regional referral center where I work. A doctor at the outlying hospital had a patient with metastatic brain cancer. She was unable to walk, and without urgent radiation treatments there was no hope for any meaningful recovery.
My hospital, one of the largest in central Florida, was full of covid patients, more than 90 percent of whom were unvaccinated. We had no beds available. We had paused elective surgeries the previous week and have been trying to control the influx of patients. Our emergency department had a 12-hour wait that day. But I had no choice. For the first time in my career, I had to say no." Nitesh N. Paryani Washington Post article August 21 , 2021.
To me it is a simple choice. Get vaccinated and help the community by reducing the chance of getting the disease and the severity if you do get it, or don't get vaccinated and hope nobody dies because you used up a bed in intensive care. Or hope nobody dies because you caught the virus and gave it to somebody vulnerable.
So much discussion is about letting perfect be the enemy of good. The data is in from around the world and from millions of patients. No, vaccines aren't perfect, but they are pretty damn good and help the community. The fact they are not 100% effective is not a valid reason to be unvaccinated. They have helped our medical system cope and without them there would be many more deaths.
