>>13349731ARR and RRR both have problems. Giving the entire population a polio vaccine because of it's high RRR makes zero sense since Polio is eradicated and thus it has no ARR. However using ARR in the context of COVID is misleading as the studies of initial COVID spread in Wuhan china back when COVID was less contagious suggest R0=5.7, and projections are only that a small fraction of the population has been infected and has any level of natural immunity. This strongly suggests that people are taking preventative measures (work closures, social distancing, etc) which in themselves have harms but the benefit of vaccination preventing these harms by increasing population wide immunity and thus decreasing the need for these measures is not considered at all. The analysis is simply inadequate and not holistic enough and the article simply has inadequately made its case and is in fact actively misleading. If we presumed none of these measures were being taken, presuming nearly the entire population would be infected is pretty plausible, which would make the ARR figures skyrocket.
Measuring after 2 months is fine, so long as your conclusion is reasonable, and their conclusion is not reasonable. If we simply assume COVID has the drop in efficacy seen with seasonal flu vaccines (so far it has less drop in efficacy compared to seasonal flu, based off comparing early studies to ones investigating alpha/delta) that would still mean that 6 months after the 2 month period ended the COVID vax would still retain about half its efficacy. If this projection held, the vaccine would be very worth it.
Different strains does not suggest vaccination is useless, we come out with new flu vaccines every year and those work fine. Even Viral Vector vaccines which have seen rather sharp declines in efficacy compared to mRNA are going from like 80% to 70% efficacy from earlier strains to alpha, whereas mRNA is going from like 95% to 90%.
Finally, not an argument.
