Good point, though I am not sure how much having the vaccine decreases the variant incidence rate. Also, regardless of variant, the vaccine has been proven to be immensely successful at preventing severe disease.
I'm not an epidemiologist, but I imagine there's a chance every time the virus replicates for a variant to randomly emerge. The vaccine appears to reduce how long the virus is in your system and how many days you are contagious. Every new infection is a new set of opportunities for variants to develop.
To your point to George P below, US hospitals are not a monolith, there are states in the country where ICUs are nearly full, and others where there is plenty of room.
Could also be the case that vaccines create more virulent strains in a similar manner to anti-biotitic resistance bacteria. I would like to see the data to support such a definite cause and effect.
Your argument against "Covid cases put an undue strain on our healthcare system and economy" is flawed. There are people dying in Canada because their "elective" surgeries have had to be postponed because wards are crammed with the unvaccinated. At least one person has died in the ER waiting for trreatment, again because of the hospital was overloaded with unvaccinated COVID-19 cases. You grossly underestimate the harm the unvaccinated are causing the vaccinated, especially when that harm is real and present, and the possible harm from the vaccine minimal and mostly speculative.
Would love to see numbers surrounding healthcare outcomes/wait times! To my knowledge, the United States is far from capacity in terms of hospital beds. The issue in Canada I would surmise is not the vaccine mandate but rather the lack of the vaccine in the first place for those who want it.
4. Continued proliferation of COVID infections increases the likelihood of a variant.
Good point, though I am not sure how much having the vaccine decreases the variant incidence rate. Also, regardless of variant, the vaccine has been proven to be immensely successful at preventing severe disease.
I'm not an epidemiologist, but I imagine there's a chance every time the virus replicates for a variant to randomly emerge. The vaccine appears to reduce how long the virus is in your system and how many days you are contagious. Every new infection is a new set of opportunities for variants to develop.
To your point to George P below, US hospitals are not a monolith, there are states in the country where ICUs are nearly full, and others where there is plenty of room.
Could also be the case that vaccines create more virulent strains in a similar manner to anti-biotitic resistance bacteria. I would like to see the data to support such a definite cause and effect.
Your argument against "Covid cases put an undue strain on our healthcare system and economy" is flawed. There are people dying in Canada because their "elective" surgeries have had to be postponed because wards are crammed with the unvaccinated. At least one person has died in the ER waiting for trreatment, again because of the hospital was overloaded with unvaccinated COVID-19 cases. You grossly underestimate the harm the unvaccinated are causing the vaccinated, especially when that harm is real and present, and the possible harm from the vaccine minimal and mostly speculative.
Would love to see numbers surrounding healthcare outcomes/wait times! To my knowledge, the United States is far from capacity in terms of hospital beds. The issue in Canada I would surmise is not the vaccine mandate but rather the lack of the vaccine in the first place for those who want it.