Update

[TMH]

Once vaccinated, getting COVID is no different then getting the flu. We never wore masks all these years during flu season.

Vaccinated people should not need to wear masks & if non vaccinated wear masks then what is the problem?

Wrestlers should be required to be vaccinated to be on the team with no excuses.

The big flaw in your analysis is that those refusing to vaccinate will typically refuse to wear masks. Even worse is children. My son and his wife live in Louisiana with two girls under 2. Those girls do not have the protection of a vaccine and there is no way a mask is staying on them (one is 3 months). Their parents both work at hospitals. Louisiana is a third world country with perhaps the lowest vaccination rate in the country. The largest hospital in Baton Rouge is out of oxygen and bed space. The Delta variant does not check age. They are very scared.

Only 2 more months until wrestling.

[NothingMeaningful]

There are several principles that Lehigh taught me that have formed my decision making throughout my life.

1.) Nothing in life is absolute so everyone needs to learn how to accurately (as possible) access risk. Risk and reward has been a guiding principle for me.

2.) Science begins with a theory but is then heavily tested under every conceivable scenario before it becomes science. In today's world punditry begins and ends in the theory. Do your due diligence and go to the most reliable sources available and not the one you count on to tell you what you want to hear.

Last night I attended the Lehigh freshman rally. Lehigh has been ultra-cautious when dealing with COVID because of it's responsibility to society. The dinner was held in an open air tent (no sides). The rally was held on the UC lawn. Virtually the entire student body and staff were fully vaccinated and the alumni were older and educated so also likely vaccinated

In that almost ideal environment the risk analysis went like this. The odds of a breakthrough case are about 5% or less based on Pfizer and Moderna testing and subsequent evaluation. The odds of a vaccinated person giving it to another vaccinated person then becomes about .25%. The odds of that transfer outdoors is far less and the odds of the transfer causing other than mild symptoms is exponentially less. Sounds like the reward of having the event far outweighed the risk. Now imagine that scenario everywhere. No one required a mask.

Lehigh taught you well! Unfortunately, risk evaluation is a missing skill in most of the country. I would also say the data shows that breakthrough cases are as much as an order of magnitude less than 5%, fortunately.

[TMH]

Difficult to assess the magnitude since many if not most cases of a breakthrough is probably asymptomatic and therefore is rarely tested and part of the data.

Good news though. At the rally, Lehigh was really pushing to attend athletic events. That indicates very little restrictions and their push was for volleyball, basketball and wrestling too which of course are all indoor activities. I'm not sure if there will be mask requirements indoor. There currently is for classes.

[Chico]

quote=LUEngineer post_id=38108 time=1629662276 user_id=459]
Once vaccinated, getting COVID is no different then getting the flu. We never wore masks all these years during flu season.

Vaccinated people should not need to wear masks & if non vaccinated wear masks then what is the problem?

Wrestlers should be required to be vaccinated to be on the team with no excuses.
[/quote]

Once vaccinated, getting COVID is no different then getting the flu. We never wore masks all these years during flu season.

Vaccinated people should not need to wear masks & if non vaccinated wear masks then what is the problem?

Wrestlers should be required to be vaccinated to be on the team with no excuses.

LUEngineer Your premise is wrong to start with. COVID is not is not like the flu, once vaccinated. The vaccine for the Flue has been developed over years, whereas the COVID vaccine was developed over an incredibly short period of time and many questions still remain.
But more importantly, the Delta variant is much more dangerous than COVID19 in its ability to spread. What viruses do is to sit in your body and rob what they need to replicate themselves. The Delta variant virus replicates itself much more quickly, roughly between 500 to 1000 times as quick as COVID19 !!! That's why it spreads so much quicker and is more deadly because Delta replicates so fast that your immune system can't keep up (The good news is that treatment is getting better as our scientists, doctors, and nurses learn.)
Also, people have worn masks in the past, but not so much in the US because our epidemiogists and other scientists have controlled things better.
The only way we can get ahead of this deadly virus is to minimize the number of people to can still get it so the viruse can't what they need to replicate. Hence the importance for masks.
And one last thought. If we don't stop this, what will keep a different variant? the longer and the more viruses out there the more likely mutations can happen. Think about that.
So, I ask you, why won't you just put a mask on when you are in crowds or indoors. There is no reason not to and millions of reasons to do it.

[LU808]

So what is your recommendation for the vaxed with breakthrough infections who then unknowingly or otherwise infect everyone else?

Quarantine camps for everyone?

Wear f***ing masks until most people are vaccinated and positivity testing is near zero. Really isn't that hard to understand.

Hmmm...you'd have fit into 1940's Germany

[NothingMeaningful]

So what is your recommendation for the vaxed with breakthrough infections who then unknowingly or otherwise infect everyone else?

Quarantine camps for everyone?

Wear f***ing masks until most people are vaccinated and positivity testing is near zero. Really isn't that hard to understand.

Hmmm...you'd have fit into 1940's Germany

Yeah, comparing wearing a mask to Nazi Germany. Good look.

[Chico]

Hey Nothing Meaningful, you know the old saw "Never argue with an idiot".

[Spladle1989]

So let's look at this a different way....what is the endgame here?

I'm vaccinated, everyone in my family is vaccinated, mostly health care workers......there is a large percentage of the population that is NOT going to get vaccinated, no matter how much you call them idiots, uneductated, despicable people, self centered or whatever other amount of chest thumping, fist pounding names you want to throw at them. They are dug in and all the "educated" yelling and pandering to them is not going to change their minds....I know many of these people and all the name calling is just making them more entrenched in their beliefs and less likely to get the vaccine and many of them are just as "educated" as you are.

I repeat you are not going to change their minds, so now give me your opinion of where we go from there. What next? Jail them? Tax them? Forcible vaccinations? Pay them large sums to get vaccinated? Create a vaccine police? What is a realistic endgame here?

I am on the side of they have made their choice, let them live their lives and deal with the possible consequences and let vaccinated people get back to living their lives also. If vaccinated people still want/need to wear masks, social distance whatever that is their choice also.

What other endgame do you realistically see happening?

[Richb-3]

Of 180million vaccinated, maybe 18 have died who would have survived covid. About 5 people die, by fire or drowning each year because they cannot get out of their car quickly. In the first week ofl august, 5 pennsylvanians died in accidents without seatbelts on properly

[TMH]

So let's look at this a different way....what is the endgame here?

I'm vaccinated, everyone in my family is vaccinated, mostly health care workers......there is a large percentage of the population that is NOT going to get vaccinated, no matter how much you call them idiots, uneductated, despicable people, self centered or whatever other amount of chest thumping, fist pounding names you want to throw at them. They are dug in and all the "educated" yelling and pandering to them is not going to change their minds....I know many of these people and all the name calling is just making them more entrenched in their beliefs and less likely to get the vaccine nad many o them are just as "educated" as you are.

I repeat you are not going to change their minds, so now give me your opinion of where we go from there. What next? Jail them? Tax them? Forcible vaccinations? Pay them large sums to get vaccinated? Create a vaccine police? What is a realistic endgame here?

I am on the side of they have made their choice, let them live their lives and deal with the possible consequences and let vaccinated people get back to living their lives also. If vaccinated people still want/need to wear masks, social distance whatever that is their choice also.

What other endgame do you realistically see happening?

Vaccine Passports which were considered taboo early on is gradually becoming more commonplace. The private sector once again is taking on a huge role. LU0808's home state of Hawaii requires proof of vaccination to travel there. Scores of businesses are requiring proof of vaccination to work there. Private colleges are requiring them to attend classes there and now the University of Michigan (and perhaps others) has joined them. Broadway is requiring them at all shows. Fox News Media requires a vaccine passport...how is that for irony.

Back on topic...unless there is a dramatic shift, Lehigh will require mask wearing at wrestling matches this fall/winter. If you don't want to wear them, don't bother showing up.

The end game is political. Until the purveyors of misinformation feel the wrath of the public, the road will remain long and treacherous.