What a vaccine does - it primes one's immune system, so it fight the virus way more efficient. And that's it. No miracles or invincibility.
Compare this to, for example, nasal spray influenza vaccines.
Most interviews with experts I listened to in the media did stress at the beginning of the vaccine rollout that they didn't yet know how large the effect of the transmission would be.
So I think it's unfair to say that it was "sold" as anything of the sort, it's mostly people retroactively rewriting the past, either deliberately to fit and agenda or just that their memory is faulty.
Maybe you could argue that there was a disconnect between what virologists/epidemiologists were saying and what media, pharma, and government talking heads were saying, but it absolutely was sold as effective in preventing infection and spread. Hence the term "vaccine" which has since been redefined by the WHO and/or CDC (I forget which one changed the definition listed on their website).
There is too much political momentum for our institutions to acknowledge that they may have made a series of significant errors in their assumptions.
My whole argument was that the experts I listened to in the media didn't bill it as such, and your argument to refute that is to restate the argument I'm combating.
>Maybe you could argue that there was a disconnect between what virologists/epidemiologists were saying and what media, pharma, and government talking heads were saying
That's exactly what I'm arguing.
I'm saying "most experts I listened to in the media, from day one, stressed that they didn't know it's efficacy on transmissibility yet"
and your point back is
"ok maybe the experts said that, but what about what the media and phrama and talking heads were saying"?
When did I mention them?
My entire point was that from day one this was being said, but people either weren't listening, or strategically choosing to forget.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-vaccine-herd-immu...
And in Dec 2020 said things like: "If you really want true herd immunity, where you get a blanket of protection over the country ... you want about 75 to 85 percent of the country to get vaccinated,” Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a live-recorded interview with Rameswaram, the host of Today, Explained. “I would say even closer to 85 percent."
https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2020/12/15/22176555/...
That's very different from stressing that they didn't know how large the effect would be. It was simply billed as being able to stop spread completely, provided enough uptake, with made-up % figures thrown in: https://www.axios.com/fauci-goalposts-herd-immunity-c83c7500...
OP made a blanket statement of how 'it was sold to everyone'.
I provide an experience of how it was presented based on my viewings of the experts I listened to in the media, providing evidence against the blanket statement.
So you're telling me what I heard and read with my own eyes is false based on three america-centric articles?
From that, I hear that the necessary figure is somewhat unknown, but what's needed is likely higher than Waterford's current. If you assume that everyone vaccinated in Waterford lives there (and not in the suburbs) and that they live to be 100 years old on average, then their vaccination share is slightly below 82%. 100 sounds a little high and people in the suburbs do avail themselves of services in the city, so my guess is that the real percentage is lower.
And one sentence I don't see from Fauci is "we'll get almost the same benefit if a little fewer people are vaccinated".
https://www.citizensjournal.us/the-cdc-suddenly-changes-the-...
It's generally recognized that the mRNA vaccine prevents neither infection nor tranmission of Covid-19. It does confer a certain benefit in terms of the severity of the disease if contracted. It's not an undiluted benefit as is indicated by the UK data (for instance) which documents significant numbers of deaths for fully vaccinated people.
See Table 2 in https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
Viral loads can be the same for the vaccinated and unvaccinated. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.29.21262798v...
If this is a reproducible result, would it not render any vaccine passport pretty much meaningless in terms of public health?
It is an undiluted benefit (your chances of survival are much much higher if you are vaccinated), but not a miracle cure, unfortunately.
The UK data you linked still says 85% protection from symptomatic illness for Delta variant with Pfizer, 95% protection from hospitalization.
My understanding is that it does not really fight the virus (viral load stays the same), but that it does prime the immune system so as not react too violently. In other words it prevents a cytokine storm: