In the absence of any information either way, you should simply not have a policy (in other words, the government should publish no opinion above and beyond whatever rate of vaccination their current level of data proves is beneficial. Which appears to be something lower than 70% from the current two data points, unless Italy's geography implies way more or less disease, or something). Not dramatically, aggressively push for one of the two policies you don't know is better...
Let's just put in a scale:
deaths due to vaccines ~= deaths due to getting infected by a random virus <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< deaths due to getting infected in an outbreak.
So the main benefit of vaccination is not to prevent people dying, but to prevent outbreaks.
Hence, we do have information about which rates of vaccination are unacceptable (the ones where outbreaks occur).
So your claim about "lack of information" is bull.
I the U.S. and the Italian examples we've considered so far in the thread already include all outbreaks during the periods measured. EVEN WITH the level of outbreaks that occur at 70% vaccination, we do not know whether the deaths from those small number of outbreaks > vaccine deaths, given the data we have on vaccine safety.
In other words, your "<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<" assumption from your post is not based in data-supported reality, for 70% or 90% coverage (examples considered so far with data). It should be replaced with "<?>" and the post would be accurate.
In the end, vaccination is like taxes. You do not benefit from your own taxes as much as you lose from paying them. Nevertheless the state depends on them. And while the state will not go bankrupt from you not paying your taxes, it still makes you a social asshole for not paying them (and even a democracy therefore enforces them). And if nobody would pay taxes ...
I am not and never did suggest that nobody "pay taxes" i.e. immunize.
I suggested that there is an optimum level of vaccination that is almost certainly below 100% and above 0%.
Which is actually very similar to taxes:
the optimum taxation rate is also nearly always below 100%, and above 0%.So thanks for a perfect analogy!
You're correct, but at this point I'd suggest there's no point in engaging GavJ any further. I and many other people have explained this exact concept to him in the past. His response is always to pretend he knew about it already, brush it off and then go back to his incredibly basic analysis without realizing that it's been completely and utterly refuted.
1) No, I've consistently disagreed.
2) You haven't provided any data or citations, so I'm not sure where this "utter refuting" is coming from. Whereas on the contrary, we do already have hard data proving your theory wrong:
Italian data actually serves as a counterpoint to what you are suggesting. From the data:
[Edit: See my next post for less hastily done math]So we already know that a change of 20% has a MUCH greater than twice as high of an effect as a 10% change further up the scale.
This disconfirms your theory that "as you get higher, vaccine coverage saves more and more lives relative to each % coverage." The 70->90 jump has a hugely higher impact per % than the 90->100 jump does (or even possibly could!). Much more than double (which would be the linear midline theory)
I admit that my description hasn't been proven correct yet from the information we have considered in the thread (although I am basing it on quite a lot of personal research, I haven't actually laid out a data-based case for it yet in this thread). But it's still at least consistent with the data we have. Whereas your theory has been proven definitely wrong.