But getting vaccinated doesn’t really prevent you from spreading it, it just prevents you from not dying from it.

LOLWUT is this antivaxxer shit? Go back to your anti-reality, anti-evidence, anti-facts hellhole, bud.

Yes, vaccines can prevent you from spreading disease to others, though the degree of prevention varies by vaccine and pathogen. By reducing the likelihood of infection or the severity of illness, vaccines lower the amount of virus or bacteria shed, thus decreasing transmission to others. High vaccination rates within a community further limit the spread of diseases.

#Here’s why:

##Reduced Infection Risk:

When you are vaccinated, your body is better prepared to fight off the pathogen, making you less likely to get infected in the first place.

##Lower Viral Load:

If you do get infected after vaccination (a breakthrough infection), the illness is often milder, and you may shed less virus, which makes it harder for you to transmit it to others.

##Community Protection:

When enough people in a community are vaccinated, the chain of transmission is broken, protecting those who cannot be vaccinated or for whom the vaccine is less effective.

Therefore, getting vaccinated not only protects your own health but also contributes to the health of the entire community by helping to stop the spread of infectious diseases

They key point is density. The denser the population, the more people need to be immunized for herd immunity to be effective, because the more people the average person comes in close contact with even only in passing.

It’s like the difference in walking six blocks in a sleepy town vs six blocks in downtown Manhattan. Even in “rush hour”, with the sidewalks at maximum typical capacity, the former might net you a dozen close encounters while the latter could easily net you 1,200 close encounters. If you are immunocompromised, the same level of herd immunity in the general population makes the former a much safer environment than the latter.

And in general, Europe tends to be much more densely populated than almost any other part of America short of the major metro regions, and they make their cities far more walkable and pedestrian-friendly, increasing the amount of potential interactions someone has; even just passing interactions.

Statistics can be wild.