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When vaccines work they are usually great at stopping the spread. For the original strain of covid, for example, it both stopped symptoms **and** stopped the spread.
The new variants however (such as delta, the most prevalent one, and omicron) it is either completely in effective or significantly less effective (hard to draw firm conclusions off what studies we have). The point is, its not effective at stopping the spread because the spike protein it encodes for is different in the variants and thus the antibodies are ineffective to a significant degree (if not completely).
yea masks im not sure about. The data in them are questionable in either direction so we can only speculate about how or if they are effective.
I think if you are very strict in how you use them they probably help, but most people, almost no one, handles mask with the level of rigor needed for them to be effective.
also soap is still a good thingie.
well im in germany we have no kids anyway and everyone is 60+ years old
Quite the opposite, the studies are exceptionally weak in nature. Virtally all use uncontrolled observational data subjected to confounding. Essentially they are prime examples of the post hoc ergo procter hoc fallacy. The few lab controlled studies we have (and they do exist) do not factor in the points I mentioned earlier.
So I think there is some decent evidence to show that a doctor using rigorous guidelines in how they conduct themselves in a surgical environment is certainly going to see a protective effect for their patient I dont think there is any good evidence this would carry over to the non-rigorous environment of the general public where none of the usual good practices are maintained.
Its like saying "condoms are proven to work"... well yea, but not when you reuse them a dozen times and take them half-off half a dozen times during sex.
