It's clearly dishonest to use the phrasing "don't block" when they know full well many people will interpret it as "don't work" at a quick glance.
If that's not enough, change the definition of "vaccines". Surely that should convince everyone!
Edit: they did that:
Aug 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g...
> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.
Today: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm
> Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.
More important than petty arguments is how this virus was sold to the public. Pfizer-BioNTech suggested 95-100% efficacy after 30 days. Now we're gaslighting people into saying protecting against severe infection was always the goal.
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
It was never claimed that they’d completely prevent infection.
New variants like Beta, Delta, and Omicron have varying levels of escape from both vaccination and prior infection, which means effectiveness at preventing severe disease or hospitalisation against those variants has decreased, requiring a booster.
Nor is this unusual, as the flu vaccine also needs to be constantly adjusted to take new variants into account.
Of course, we know now that the variants have evolved some degree of immune escape, that the vaccines no longer prevent infection while still being effective against severe disease, but that's not what the "experts" originally claimed. It's disappointing to see the Hacker News crowd buying into the gaslighting that vaccines are only ever meant to prevent hospitalization. That was not the scientific consensus 2 years ago, and still isn't.
In simple terms, had SARS-CoV-2 not mutated, and we were still dealing with the original wild type, then this pandemic would have been over months ago. They were that all-round effective.
The emergence of variants is what has caused the pandemic to continue, as many scientists warned. As I showed with the Nature article, general scientific consensus was optimistic but cautious and warned about waning immunity and variants.
You seem to think this is all some kind of gotcha, when it's really about adapting to a changing situation and an evasive virus.
Nope. Please click and read either of the links I sent.
Here, I'll quote them for you.
>The trial enrolled 2,260 adolescents 12 to 15 years of age in the United States. In the trial, 18 cases of COVID-19 were observed in the placebo group (n=1,129) versus none in the vaccinated group (n=1,131).
>A total of 43,548 participants underwent randomization, of whom 43,448 received injections: 21,720 with BNT162b2 and 21,728 with placebo. There were 8 cases of Covid-19 with onset at least 7 days after the second dose among participants assigned to receive BNT162b2 and 162 cases among those assigned to placebo; BNT162b2 was 95% effective in preventing Covid-19 (95% credible interval, 90.3 to 97.6). Similar vaccine efficacy (generally 90 to 100%) was observed across subgroups defined by age, sex, race, ethnicity, baseline body-mass index, and the presence of coexisting conditions.
>The first primary end point was the efficacy of BNT162b2 against confirmed Covid-19 with onset at least 7 days after the second dose in participants who had been without serologic or virologic evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection up to 7 days after the second dose; the second primary end point was efficacy in participants with and participants without evidence of prior infection. Confirmed Covid-19 was defined according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) criteria as the presence of at least one of the following symptoms: fever, new or increased cough, new or increased shortness of breath, chills, new or increased muscle pain, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, diarrhea, or vomiting, combined with a respiratory specimen obtained during the symptomatic period or within 4 days before or after it that was positive for SARS-CoV-2 by nucleic acid amplification–based testing, either at the central laboratory or at a local testing facility (using a protocol-defined acceptable test).
>Major secondary end points included the efficacy of BNT162b2 against severe Covid-19. Severe Covid-19 is defined by the FDA as confirmed Covid-19 with one of the following additional features: clinical signs at rest that are indicative of severe systemic illness; respiratory failure; evidence of shock; significant acute renal, hepatic, or neurologic dysfunction; admission to an intensive care unit; or death. Details are provided in the protocol.
Primary goal, symptomatic infection. Secondary goal, severe infection.
Please stop the gaslighting.
However, scientific consensus was that we may not see such great results in the real world, especially if variants emerged. That was all highlighted in the Nature article I posted, which came out at the same time.
I don't understand why this is so difficult for people to understand. Mutations always change the game, but the commentary (and hope) was that the vaccines would continue protecting against severe disease, hospitalisation and death even with new mutations. That has broadly been the case.
They were not released at the same time. Check the dates. Your Nature article was written almost two months before the actual studies were released. It was based on preliminary evidence. It's not a rebuttal to the actual studies. The actual studies are a rebuttal to the Nature article.
>I don't understand why this is so difficult for people to understand
Likewise. Why do you insist on lying and perpetuating lies?
You’re starting from a predefined agenda and seeking evidence to fit, which is no way to go about things.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steriliz...
If “vaccine” meant “thing that 100% stops you from ever even getting infected”, most vaccines throughout the history of vaccination wouldn’t meet that definition.
But that’s not, and has never been, the definition – so nothing needs to be changed.
>> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.
That doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means (so-called “sterilizing immunity”). A 20-fold reduction in hospitalization is by any read protecting you from a disease.
Not taking sides but that's exactly how most people think about vaccines.
Where have you ever seen a definition of the word "vaccine" saying or even implying that it "blocks transmission and infection"?
Aug 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g...
> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.
Today: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm
> Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.
I think this is what people are referring to.
Few, if any, vaccines have blocked infection. They work by preventing the onset of severe disease and usually by severely blunting infectiousness.
In both those cases the vaccines just blunted the transmission rate enough for r0 to drop below 1. We were also lucky that the responsible viruses had very stable mutation rates & no animal reservoirs unlike SARS-CoV-2. That meant they mostly died out over time once the transmission rate was reduced.
I mean, take this quote from Dr. Fauci himself:
> As a physician and as a scientist and a public-health person, I think it is not entirely correct to make this very strong dichotomy between waning protection against hospitalization and death and waning immunity against infection and mild-to-moderate disease. It is an assumption that it’s okay to get infected and to get mild-to-moderate disease as long as you don’t wind up in the hospital and die. And I have to be open and honest: I reject that. I think we should be preventing people from getting sick from COVID even if they don’t wind up in the hospital.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/fauci-boo...
You're demanding perfection and insisting that anything that falls short is worthless. That makes no sense.
Some countries pursued an eradication goal early on and some public health officials publicly spoke about their hope to achieve that, but while that was possible with the wild type it no longer is with the variants and animal reservoirs. It was a reasonable, rational strategy at the time, later undermined by the nature of new mutations.
You’re attempting to redefine the baseline of what’s considered acceptable for a vaccine, beyond what has ever been the case. In fact the vaccine most people would be aware of and have come into contact with, the flu vaccine, only partially protects against severe illness.
We have only been able to eradicate two viruses in human history through vaccination. In all other cases it’s a tool used to prevent worse outcomes and control the disease’s severity and spread.
Nonetheless, new vaccines that better target variants like Delta and Omicron, and hopefully any new ones that may emerge, are already in active development and trials. So we will see improvements in our ability to protect people against COVID-19.
(This is from someone who is taking a vaccine orally everyday (that doesn't "block transmission and infection" as it is allergy-related.)
The only people moving the goal post are the anti-vaxers. Ok, they reduce the severity of the disease...but..but..but COVID is still spreading so I will write off vaccines entirely.
"You're not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations" - Joe Biden
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn...
Are they preventing infection?