Endemic=ALWAYS a part of our lives

Rick wrote: I just heard that 80% of the population has been vaccinated. So if you add up the vaccinated with those who already contracted the virus, how many are left?

Virus now taking off in highly vaccinated states, but follow the science, they know what they’re doing.

80% of the population OR 80% of the eligible population? There's a big difference whether that word is included or excluded, and I highly doubt 80% of Americans are vaccinated which means the true percentage is far lower.

Also, there are huge differences county to county and state to state.

Why do those two things matter? Because as contagious as the Delta variant is, it's gonna take a higher total percentage of the population to be vaccinated, and those pockets of very low vaccination rates brought way up, before we're more protected. In the meantime, people have to stop behaving as if everything's fine when they go to indoor public places/large crowded areas, particularly as the weather turns cold and we're exposed to less fresh air.

Why are Colorado COVID-19 cases spiking?
By: Todd Neff, for UCHealth | Nov. 5, 2021

Zane suspects that the state’s uneven vaccination rates across its 64 counties are a contributor. Colorado counties’ rates of vaccination among eligible residents who have received at least one shot range from 100% in San Juan County to 37% in Washington County. While populous counties are generally better vaccinated, there’s a range there, too: 86% in Denver County, 82% in Jefferson County, 75% in Larimer County, 71% in El Paso County, and 65% in Pueblo County. It may be no coincidence that the combination of a sizable population and a low vaccination rate is contributing to Pueblo County having the state’s worst coronavirus spike. Herlihy pegged the rate of infection among the unvaccinated at between eight times and 20 times that of the vaccinated.

“It’s really giant holes of unvaccinated people, and gives the virus the opportunity to spread like wildfire,” Zane said.

HA, the vaccines are quite effective against the Delta variant, the chance of the pharmaceutical companies being able to tweak them to make them better is probably possible, but is it worth the time and money to go through the human trials for safety and efficacy? The problem is the waning immunity from the original vaccinations and why boosters are needed - it's supported by the data.

SARS-CoV-2 vaccine protection and deaths among US veterans during 2021
Science • 4 Nov 2021
DOI: 10.1126/science.abm0620

We report SARS-CoV-2 vaccine effectiveness against infection (VE-I) and death (VE-D) by vaccine type (n = 780,225) in the Veterans Health Administration, covering 2.7% of the U.S. population. From February to October 2021, VE-I declined from 87.9% to 48.1%, and the decline was greatest for the Janssen vaccine resulting in a VE-I of 13.1%. Although breakthrough infection increased risk of death, vaccination remained protective against death in persons who became infected during the Delta surge. From July to October 2021, VE-D for age 65 years was 73.0% for Janssen, 81.5% for Moderna, and 84.3% for Pfizer-BioNTech; VE-D for age ≥65 years was 52.2% for Janssen, 75.5% for Moderna, and 70.1% for Pfizer-BioNTech. Findings support continued efforts to increase vaccination, booster campaigns, and multiple, additional layers of protection against infection.

Study shows dramatic decline in effectiveness of all three COVID-19 vaccines over time
By Melissa Healy, LA Times Staff Writer | Nov. 4, 2021

As the Delta variant became the dominant strain of the coronavirus across the United States, all three COVID-19 vaccines available to Americans lost some of their protective power, with vaccine efficacy among a large group of veterans dropping between 35% and 85%, according to a new study.

Researchers who scoured the records of nearly 800,000 U.S. veterans found that in early March, just as the Delta variant was gaining a toehold across American communities, the three vaccines were roughly equal in their ability to prevent infections.

But over the next six months, that changed dramatically.