Curious... So the United Arab Emirates started vaccinating with the Pfizer vax on Dec 23rd¹. They're now at 2nd place w/ 16% vaxed. COVID-19 cases had been flat. But five days later they started skyrocketing _without_ a corresponding increase in testing.
Israel is also rising very fast, despite 25% getting their first dose. Though unlike UAE, cases started rising pre-vax.
Antibody dependent enhancement wasn't ruled out in the trials... hopefully not what's going on.
@pete We're getting more tourists, safety mesures are being removed, people are being more careless in general
@pete Also lot of work places decided now to follow the government in testing people every 2 weeks if they're not taking the vaccine
@Seccour So are those tests not getting reported in testing stats? In most countries reporting all tests done has been made mandatory at the lab level to get good stats. Though if they're using rapid tests that may not get reported.
Deaths have been going up too in UAE. But not as dramatically as cases, so your theory of workplace testing may be correct. OTOH, depends a lot on who is getting vaxed. 🤷♂️
@pete I guess the news of the vaccine give people a false sense of security 🤷♂️
@Seccour I mean, if you're youngish and healthy, reality is you always should have had a sense of security. It's just not that deadly to most demographics.
@Seccour Thing is, if they were limited in the number of tests they can do, you wouldn't expect a rise except by an increase in people with symptoms, or perhaps, a big change in who is getting tested.
Supposing the vax is making things worse, either the media isn't making a big deal about people getting covid symptoms after vax - which honestly would be appropriate, as protection is _not_ 100% - or some kind of effect is making people more likely to transmit it when they get it.
@Seccour One possible effect would just be psychological: people get covid after getting vaccinated, because protection isn't 100%, and are in denial about their symptoms!
@pete They are but I guess they are limited in the number of tests they can do a day ?
Also I organize expats meetups in Dubai and the number of people that were isolating in 2020 but are starting to go out again is huge