The reality is the vaccines do reduce transmission, just not as much as hoped. They are very effective at preventing infection, though that immunity wanes over time (just as immunity from infection does), but it does continue to help prevent serious illness from occurring.
The vaccines were shown to reduce infection rates, which will reduce transmission. This was known in the trials used to gain emergency use, though reduction of transmission specifically was not part of the studies, it was understood that because infection rates were reduced they would reduce transmission. The subsequent results confirm that.
That said, it sounds like you are conceding the point that the vaccines reduce transmission and are effective at preventing illness, which is good, and contradicts your earlier statements:
> there was never evidence these vaccinations prevented infection/transmission.
> The evidence is that they suppressed symptoms, which people misunderstood as preventing infection/transmission
> This was known in the trials used to gain emergency use, though reduction of transmission specifically was not part of the studies, it was understood that because infection rates were reduced they would reduce transmission.
Pfizer's press release very specifically did not say that. They correctly distinguished between SARS-CoV-2 (the virus) and COVID-19 (the disease caused by the virus), only claiming a reduction with the second and making no claims about the first. They avoided making any claims there because they did not test for the virus until after symptoms developed, making it impossible to make any claims about infection/transmission.
It was well-known for a month or two after the announcement, after which it got memory-holed hard:
> That said, it sounds like you are conceding the point that the vaccines reduce transmission and are effective at preventing illness, which is good, and contradicts your earlier statements:
I stand by what I said. Note the timeline and that I used "was". The whole argument was about 2021 and early 2022, then you argued otherwise using evidence we only had in late 2022 and 2023.
From your earlier comment:
> because there was never evidence these vaccinations prevented infection/transmission
You are refusing to admit you were factually incorrect, it's very disappointing.
Everyone knew that the trials did not specifically study transmission rates, I never disagreed with that. The fact is, as soon as the vaccinations went live we had massive data supporting it, and studies were done that completed in the next years that confirmed it. Societally, we knew the vaccines were effective at both preventing transmission (though not as effective as we'd like) and preventing infection (though for not as long as we'd like).
I'm done engaging because you refuse to admit you were wrong regarding the efficacy of the vaccine and are now changing your argument to be about a specific timeline, which is asinine - the studies to confirm what we were seeing in realtime with the vaccine rollout would _of course_ take longer than the trials that started the rollout.
Wrong. The evidence is that they suppressed symptoms, which people misunderstood as preventing infection/transmission.
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