This rather striking graph was taken from the most recent COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report from Public Health England. (09/09/21 – link to PDF. Graph is on page 18.)
What this demonstrates quite clearly, and many of us have known anecdotally for several months now, is that being double vaccinated doesn’t stop you catching, and one would presume, transmitting the virus. If it doesn’t stop you catching and transmitting the virus, why are so many people supporting the erosion of the civil and human rights of those who have chosen not to take the vaccine? It makes no logical or rational sense from a health perspective.
I oppose segregation in general, mainly because I am a scholar of racism and work on other forms of discrimination. But even if you don’t share a general moral and intellectual opposition to discrimination, how can you justify “health”-based apartheid on the basis of the available data? When your double vaccinated neighbour could just as easily transmit COVID to you as your unvaccinated one.
The vaccine does seem to be protecting those who have taken it against developing more severe forms of COVID-19 and on the basis of that evidence, it would seem sensible that those who worry about their own vulnerability to the virus should take the vaccine. But your fears about your own health should not, for both moral and data-led reasons, cause you to support the erosion of the civil and human rights of those who do not share your fears.