Agree that flu shot is a useful comparison.
Flu shot is about 43% effective, on average.
With the potential for virus ‘mismatch’, how long will it be before we know if this year’s shot is effective against the more prevalent flu types?
www.healthline.com
But the mandates were from the Delta wave era. Against Delta, the original vaccine was still in the 80-95% effective range, depending on whether you had 2 or 3 shots.
This case-control study estimates the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against symptomatic infections due to the Delta and Omicron variants and severe outcomes associated with these infections among adults in Ontario, Canada.
jamanetwork.com
80-95% is a lot better than 43%.
80-95% is high enough that we could have prevented the delta wave by enforcing masks and vaccines. Not just protect a certain subset. As a people, we could have chosen to not have the wave at all.
Whether it would have been worth it depends on how you feel about the relative value of 100,000 deaths versus the freedom to socialize while unmasked and unvaccinated. But it’s not as simple as “the vaccine doesn’t work.”