Does being vaccinated against Covid protect others?
Pre-Delta, the answer was most likely yes.
Now, however, things are different. You've probably heard that vaxed who get infected can have similar viral loads to the unvaxed, at about 1000X the levels of previous variants.
And protection against infection is much less effective with Delta...
HOWEVER. In real world application, ironically because the vaccine does reduce illness symptoms significantly or entirely... the vaxed are more likely to be out & about feeling fine & spreading Covid, while the unvaxed are self-isolating at home because they have at least some apparent symptoms. Remember also, that Delta viral loads are 1000X greater initially, so you're reducing from a very high starting point.
(At the presymptomatic stage after infection, the viral loads are probably similar for vaxed & unvaxed.)
So where does that leave us? Well, I would say that in the previous case it likely means that infected vaxed people are actually more likely to infect others in a real world scenario.
The next question then is, how well does vaccination protect against getting infected in the first place? Earlier this post, we saw that in the Israeli example Pfizer was <40% effective. Which is not great, but still significant.
Putting that together with the previous analysis, suggests to me that on balance, overall, net net... vaccination probably doesn't do a lot to protect others.
So the narrative behind vaccine mandates could be seen as disingenuous. You're likely not protecting anyone except yourself. And that's fine. But maybe curb your sense of entitlement & self-righteous indignation a little.
