Yes, the vaccinated still get covid. But they're not being hospitalized in significant numbers. The issue is hospitalization. Hospitals have indeed been overwhelmed[1] and considerable numbers of people have been dying at home, many in their 20s and 30s, with covid because hospitals simply can't take them in. Natural immunity comes as a result of being infected, which brings a huge risk of hospitalization and death.
I can't speak for Japan. But I did read your link. It calls out that the private hospitals in Japan have always been very small, not prepared for infectious diseases. It also mentions that they're not required to take in patients, which could definitely cause a backlog in other parts of the system. Whereas in the USA, hospitals have to treat you. They'll definitely send you a massive bill, but they have to treat you if they have resources to do so.
So that may be the difference between why Japan got so slammed and why we, despite the commentary in the news, have not experienced actual collapse like we feared at first. Allow me to point you to this:
"In other words, the study suggests that roughly half of all the hospitalized patients showing up on COVID-data dashboards in 2021 may have been admitted for another reason entirely, or had only a mild presentation of disease."
So it seems we have an overblown narrative in the media, at least as far as the nature and extent of the hospitalizations in America as a whole. Since we also have over 100 million Americans with past covid (and consequently excellent antibodies against covid including against delta), the narrative about healthcare system collapse seems to have been proven untrue. Source for how many people had covid here once again:
"A new study published in the journal Nature estimates that 103 million Americans, or 31 percent of the U.S. population, had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 by the end of 2020."
As mentioned elsewhere, pushing natural immunity as the solution is as dumb as chicken pox parties that misinformed people of previous decades used to have. It was unnecessarily dangerous. Yes, people who push that should be pushed out of the discussion. Give them an inch and they'll eat away your country from the inside out. There's a reason the US is such a massive disaster with tremendous deaths and growing (but primarily in select states, and primarily states that have opposition to vaccines for political reasons), while other countries that embraced vaccines are finally getting things under control.
This is nonsense. We already have over 100 million Americans with natural immunity regardless of whether someone likes it or not. It has already happened. And therefore, that solves the debate as far as how we should proceed with covid. It's a false dilemma to keep presenting it as vax or no vax. There is the third reality for a huge chunk of Americans, and that is the fact that for their own bodies, covid is no longer relevant.
We embraced vaccines here plenty. We simply have less of a culture of mandating things, and thankfully we haven't gone the way of Australia yet. You can see my comment history for examples of what's going on there, but I'll paste them here for your convenience. I don't consider this anywhere under control regardless of covid numbers, because the cost will be too high:
They're going to force people who quarantine at home (rather than a government-mandated quarantine "hotel" with guards) to install and use an app. Facial recognition, GPS tracking in your own home. And it will randomly ping you, and if you don't respond within 15 minutes it'll send the police to your house to conduct an in-person quarantine check. Source:
“NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian yesterday announced freedoms for fully vaccinated people once 70% of the state’s eligible population are double dosed. These include being able to go to hospitality venues, hairdressers and gyms, and have five people to your home.”
They can arbitrarily lock you in your apartment building for up to weeks, no one allowed to leave. Source:
"We already have over 100 million Americans with natural immunity"
This is rubbish, which you have repeated here several times now.
You cited one study, which is a modelling estimate, and ignore the much better studies which actually test for seropositivity and antibodies which show much lower rates of infection.
Your comments about Japan make no sense at all, as they have experienced COVID in a fundamentally different way than the US, initially with considerably lower rates of infection etc, like Australia, Taiwan and New Zealand, these 'Island States' have had better means for containment.
You've completely misrepresented the Atlantic article to suggest that somehow we didn't already know most cases of COVID are not severe - but worse that somehow they don't have COVID when we can and do provide fairly accurate testing for it.
There is no ambiguity about who was in 'all those hospital beds'. We were not guesstimating.
In a pandemic, there's a 100% chance that some people will show up at hospitals and have 'illness' but not the contagious infection causing the pandemic. This is not part of any kind of argument.
Hospitals in many regions are filling up with people who have COVID, that is the material fact here.
I can't speak for Japan. But I did read your link. It calls out that the private hospitals in Japan have always been very small, not prepared for infectious diseases. It also mentions that they're not required to take in patients, which could definitely cause a backlog in other parts of the system. Whereas in the USA, hospitals have to treat you. They'll definitely send you a massive bill, but they have to treat you if they have resources to do so.
So that may be the difference between why Japan got so slammed and why we, despite the commentary in the news, have not experienced actual collapse like we feared at first. Allow me to point you to this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/covid-hos...
"In other words, the study suggests that roughly half of all the hospitalized patients showing up on COVID-data dashboards in 2021 may have been admitted for another reason entirely, or had only a mild presentation of disease."
So it seems we have an overblown narrative in the media, at least as far as the nature and extent of the hospitalizations in America as a whole. Since we also have over 100 million Americans with past covid (and consequently excellent antibodies against covid including against delta), the narrative about healthcare system collapse seems to have been proven untrue. Source for how many people had covid here once again:
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news...
"A new study published in the journal Nature estimates that 103 million Americans, or 31 percent of the U.S. population, had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 by the end of 2020."
As mentioned elsewhere, pushing natural immunity as the solution is as dumb as chicken pox parties that misinformed people of previous decades used to have. It was unnecessarily dangerous. Yes, people who push that should be pushed out of the discussion. Give them an inch and they'll eat away your country from the inside out. There's a reason the US is such a massive disaster with tremendous deaths and growing (but primarily in select states, and primarily states that have opposition to vaccines for political reasons), while other countries that embraced vaccines are finally getting things under control.
This is nonsense. We already have over 100 million Americans with natural immunity regardless of whether someone likes it or not. It has already happened. And therefore, that solves the debate as far as how we should proceed with covid. It's a false dilemma to keep presenting it as vax or no vax. There is the third reality for a huge chunk of Americans, and that is the fact that for their own bodies, covid is no longer relevant.
We embraced vaccines here plenty. We simply have less of a culture of mandating things, and thankfully we haven't gone the way of Australia yet. You can see my comment history for examples of what's going on there, but I'll paste them here for your convenience. I don't consider this anywhere under control regardless of covid numbers, because the cost will be too high:
They're going to force people who quarantine at home (rather than a government-mandated quarantine "hotel" with guards) to install and use an app. Facial recognition, GPS tracking in your own home. And it will randomly ping you, and if you don't respond within 15 minutes it'll send the police to your house to conduct an in-person quarantine check. Source:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-a...
They're arresting people for making Facebook posts against lockdowns. Source:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54007824
Australia presumes to say how many people can visit your home. Source:
https://theconversation.com/vaccine-passports-are-coming-to-...
“NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian yesterday announced freedoms for fully vaccinated people once 70% of the state’s eligible population are double dosed. These include being able to go to hospitality venues, hairdressers and gyms, and have five people to your home.”
They can arbitrarily lock you in your apartment building for up to weeks, no one allowed to leave. Source:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-53316097