Public health officials like Dr. Joe Ladapo, Florida’s Surgeon General, are now coming out against COVID-19 vaccine mandates publicly via the mainstream media. A salient fact on the previously mentioned matter supporting Dr. Ladapo’s claim in the video above, will be explained below.
Let us start here so the parameters can be set. After watching the video within this publication, one would then understand that mandating COVID-19 vaccination to prevent transmission is ineffective. But why?
To shed more light on the aforementioned matter, a brief explanation of viral reproductive numbers, AKA R0, or R-naught, will be explained. Succinctly put, if a virus has an R0 of 1, that means an infected individual will likely infect one other1. Another example, if a virus has an R0 of 2, every one infected person will likely infect two others. That said, the current dominant form of SARS-CoV-2 in the US named BA5, has an R0 of around 18. Just so there is no confusion, that means every 1 infected person will likely infect 18 others.
Now, more historical context on R0 relating to the virus at hand will be laid out. The original Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2 had an R0 of around 2.792. Additionally, the highly transmissible Delta possessed an R0 of about 5.083. Be that as it may, the past has taught us an important lesson.
Specifically, regardless of vaccination, the Delta variant with an R0 of 5 spread like wildfire without regard to personal risk reduction measures involving not only vaccination, but masking, social distancing, and isolation. That is not to say, do not vaccinate, do not mask, do not social distance, do not isolate. Rather, understand Mother Nature can not be controlled, so get cozy with doing a person risk/benefit analysis. To explain, ask yourself this question after reading the data- are the potential risks of this intervention greater than the benefits to be potentially derived? If you feel yes, then it may be advisable to forgo the intervention.
Now that the table has been set, let us revisit BA5 so the major point of this article can be driven home. As a refresher, the aforesaid Omicron strain BA5 currently has a reproductive number of around 184. That means an important question needs to be addressed immediately. Considering the astronomical amount of infections from Delta whose reproductive number was only 5, could we expect that vaccine mandates against BA5 with an R0 of nearly 18 could meaningfully reduce infections? The answer is obviously no. Clearly, the reproductive number of this new dominant variant is nearly 3X what Delta was. Therefore, logic tells you, this is 3X the infection risk even after factoring in vaccines.
To play devil’s advocate, it could be said there are SOME observational data associating mRNA vaccination with a small reduction of death and severe illness against BA5. However, low amounts of death and severe illness are due to the fact BA5 is not as virulent as previous SARS-CoV-2 strains + sub-lineages. As a consequence, reduction of severe illness and death could not possibly be from mRNA vaccination, that benefit is conferred by a less lethal viral strain- BA5. Nonetheless, most rational thinking people would agree, taking a vaccine for protection against a mostly mild symptom inducing virus should be a personal choice involving independent risk/benefit analysis with ones physician at best, it should not be enforced by mandate.
All and all, it is crystal clear vaccination can not possibly curb the trajectory of COVID-19 infections at this point in time. Hence, mandates are not justified.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2765665
https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taab124
https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taab124
https://theconversation.com/australia-is-heading-for-its-third-omicron-wave-heres-what-to-expect-from-ba-4-and-ba-5-185598
Florida Surgeon General Says, “How can you force someone to take a vaccine to stop transmission when that vaccine doesn’t stop transmission?”