Comment by WarmWash | Hacker News Reader

Comment by WarmWash | Hacker News Reader

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Everyday I am infinitely grateful I have the ability to understand nuance, and the mental firepower to be able to comprehend data coming from sources rather than tiktoks, twitter, and hyper-partisan news orgs.

No one ever said the vaccine would prevent transmission. What they said was that it !could! prevent transmission. But no one would know before studies were done. What they did say is that it would lower mortality rates. Which it did in fact do. But the factors of transmission and spread were dice rolls. And everyone with first hand knowledge knew that from day one.

But, you are in fact correct, you were lied to. But not by anyone with knowledge of the vaccines, but by the grifters you hold up has being "a beacon of truth". The grifters who read "Vaccine has a chance it could slow or stop transmission" and turn around and say "They are promising it will stop transmission!" just so they can tear it down later as "another victory for TRUTH!".

Yes they did say it would. https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/553773-fauci-...

Also you don’t know anything about me and what media I consume. You can’t quote me on something I didn’t say. They did say it would stop transmission.

Your source clearly says that the likelihood of transmission is reduced, not eliminated.

‘“So even though there are breakthrough infections with vaccinated people, almost always the people are asymptomatic and the level of virus is so low it makes it extremely unlikely — not impossible but very, very low likelihood — that they’re going to transmit it,” Fauci said.‘

Extremely unlikely is a lot stronger than reduced. Calling it breakthrough implies that the norm is prevention. Obviously nothing is 100%.

Preface: I have been in favor of the COVID vaccine and disease mitigations (and wish we would have used this opportunity for clean indoor air...).

I'm willing to accept my memory is wrong here with evidence, but I remember a very strong narrative in the early period claiming that the vaccine did in fact prevent contraction and transmission, to the point where it was supposedly surprising when "breakthrough" cases started being reported.

It's possible there was some loose language around "prevent" as I did see that especially later on, but I have trouble finding reliable information on what they actually believed and if they actually reported this accurately to the public.

There is the unfortunate mark against where they knowingly promoted misinformation around masks - persistent through today - that they were ineffective, in an effort to direct uncontrolled distribution of masks to medical professionals most in need.

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