Ask Lemmy

If you’re in an at-risk group, yes. But you don’t need to be vaccinated if you’re under-60 and healthy, because the vaccines only protect you, not anyone else as you can still pass it on. So the whole period with vaccine passports and other nonsense was stupid, harmed the cause of getting people vaccinated and led to increased scepticism of vaccines in general.

What you seem to be saying here is that if you are under 60 vaccines aren't worth the risk to you personally, and that they don't stop transmission thereby failing to remove a risk to others over 60. Tell me if I got that wrong.

Assuming that I didn't, let's unpick that:

If you’re in an at-risk group, yes. But you don’t need to be vaccinated if you’re under-60 and healthy,

It is correct that the risks of Covid to younger people are less than older people, but they are not zero. Your statement implies that it is only older people who are at risk, which is not correct. Vaccines still reduce the risk for younger people too:

"Among hospitalized adolescent patients, two doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine were highly effective against Covid-19–related hospitalization and ICU admission or the receipt of life support." https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2117995

In fact, while younger people are less likely to suffer severe adverse symptoms from Covid, vaccination actually has a GREATER protective effect for young people against potential severe consequences . i.e. the consequences are mitigated more for young people than older people.

"We found a substantial effect of age on the results. Many HRs in younger individuals (<60 years-old) were in general lower (i.e. favouring vaccination even more) for outcomes significantly associated with vaccination" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889159122001118

as you can still pass it on

The r value for vaccinated people is lower than for unvaccinated people. That is, a vaccinated person with Covid will expose less people to Covid than an unvaccinated person will, which is safer for everyone else.

So in conclusion, vaccination does reduce the risks of Covid injury in people under 60 (as well as those over 60), and does reduce the rate of transmission.

When it comes to complex issues like this, the only sources of information that should be considered can best be found on Google Scholar.