Do You Understand This?
I have a question about something I’m seeing on social media, both when I look for myself and in the links that people send me as potential content fodder.
It is confusing as hell to me. I really don’t get it. If you do, and you can comment (open for paid subscribers) or email me an explanation, I would really appreciate your help!
If I understand the claim correctly, then the claim I am repeatedly seeing (typically in response to the recent discussion of the COVID vaccines not being tested to gauge their effectiveness in preventing transmission) is this: the vaccines don’t prevent transmission and there was never any claim made that they did. Further, that there was never any need to test them for their ability to prevent transmission because they prevent infection. The claim, if I grasp it correctly, is that the vaccines do prevent transmission, because you have to be infected in order to transmit, and these vaccines apparently do a bang-up job of preventing infection.
I found a random twitter profile from someone who does not appear in any way to be a troll or parody and grabbed these screenshots, as these are a fair representation of what I’ve been seeing myself, and also receiving from readers.
I am very, very confused about this argument and the number of people I see asserting it.
The COVID vaccines, they seem to believe, prevent spread by preventing infection—except for when they don’t prevent infection. Then the vaccination makes no difference; transmission occurs just as in the case of an unvaccinated person who is infected with COVID.
So the argument, if I understand it correctly, is that we live in a country where 67% to 80% of the population won’t kill other people by transmitting COVID to them, since they’re prevented from infection.
Except for the ones who are vaccinated and get it anyway.
And this is why we should mandate the jabs, ostracize the unvaccinated, and otherwise continue down the garden path of mandates!
And the rhetoric about jabbing kids, even making it mandatory to jab kids, and putting them at risk of myocarditis and other complications in order to protect Grandmas and Grandpas from being infected and killed by their grandchildren — I don’t remember any of these caveats.
Do you?
What am I not getting? How are people making these assertions with a straight face?
What am I missing?
Helping Kids Escape the Public Schools
My most recent Substack, Schoolchildren and the COVID Vaxes, offered my (free) mathematics curriculum consulting services for parents who are considering homeschooling. I can help you navigate the enormity of the choices available and decide on a mathematics program that will serve your child’s educational needs. And if you need a teacher or tutor, I offer those services on a sliding scale of what you/your family can comfortably afford, including $0 if that’s your situation.
That issue got a lot of email in response. I expected the emails from families considering homeschooling (or in some cases, just looking to supplement their child’s subpar public school experience by providing mathematics enrichment at home). And I expected the emails from people who need mathematics help for themselves or a child, especially the “are you really sure it’s ok if we can’t pay you” emails.
What I did not expect was the emails from people who want very much to support any effort to get kids out of the public schools, asking to sponsor my time to help provide this tutoring. First, thank you. Those offers were so heartwarming to read. There is so much awfulness in the world now, so much polarization, so much bad news. To get multiple emails saying “I love that you have a practical way to help parents rescue their kids, and I want to help you do that” was a much better anti-depressant than I’ve experienced in a very long time.
The world isn’t such a terrible place, and we humans really are quite capable of goodness. Thank you all for that reminder.
If you want to sponsor some of my time in mathematics tutoring, you can do so by CashApp to $HollyMathNerd or, if you aren’t a CashApp person, you can do it through Substack. There’s a “founding member” option but you can delete the amount in that box and put in any amount you like; I will assume any such subscriptions that come in during the next two weeks or so are intended for that purpose.
Again, thank you. Depression continues to be an ongoing struggle, and things like this go such a long way to helping me remember that life, and how we choose to live it, are precious gifts and deserving of optimism.
Housekeeping: Now through Halloween, paid subscriptions are 10% off: link here. Comments are open for paid subscribers. Email hollymathnerd at gmail if you want to participate but can’t afford a paid subscription. I’m no longer on any social media, so your spreading the link to anything you enjoy reading here is helpful and appreciated. Thank you!
Like SCA's comment, I think they're lying. Often unconsciously, but sometimes consciously. They put so much stock into their position that they feel backed into a corner. The mind will do all sorts of things to soothe that discomfort.
[borderline anti-vaxxer here, just to let you know]
Why would you think that a vaccine would stop (or even really effect, but see caveats below) transmission? By what mechanism would the vaccine itself, once the bug has gotten around the defenses that the infection is supposed to build up, stop the bug from being exhalled on your breath, for example.
But, if it lowers your chance of getting it, then it logically lowers your chance of getting and transmitting it.
And if it is true that the vaccine reduces the seriousness of the infection, then that probably reduces the chance (via reduction of the amount or transmissible bug present) of transmission.
Of course, the calculus of child mandates is something completely different.
And that says nothing about what claims people may have made about it. I'd have to parse each one specifically.
But, maybe I am missing something.