I am amazed that we are now pretending that these vaccines were not intended to prevent infection and were explained in that manner. Absolutely amazed.
I'm going back to this...
October 2020 - Transcript of interview with Dr. Fauci
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), discusses the purpose, development and timeline of COVID-19 vaccines in the United States and Europe.
www.yahoo.com
ANTHONY FAUCI: And that's the primary endpoint of most of the virus. It's to prevent clinical disease, to prevent symptomatic disease, not necessarily to prevent infection. That's a secondary endpoint. But the primary thing you want to do is that if people get infected, prevent them from getting sick. And if you prevent them from getting sick, you will ultimately prevent them from getting seriously ill.
So that's what we want to do. The first point, which we call a primary endpoint, is that. If the vaccine also allows you to prevent initial infection, that would be great. But what I would settle for, and all of my colleagues would settle for, is the primary endpoint to prevent clinically recognizable disease. And that's what we hope happens. And if we do, that will go a long way to diffusing this very difficult crisis that we're in.
*****
June 2020 - Bloomberg
The First Covid Vaccines May Not Prevent Covid Infection [It's like the actual article title]
Read more at:
https://www.bloombergquint.com/coro...ccines-may-not-prevent-you-from-getting-covid
"Desperation for a way to keep economies from collapsing under the weight of covid-19 could mean settling for a vaccine that prevents people from getting really sick or dying but doesn’t stop them from catching the coronavirus.
Although a knock-out blow against the virus is the ultimate goal, early vaccines may come with limitations on what they can deliver, according to Robin Shattock, an Imperial College London professor leading development of an experimental shot.
“Is that protection against infection?” Shattock said. “Is it protection against illness? Is it protection against severe disease? It’s quite possible a vaccine that only protects against severe disease would be very useful.”"
later...
“Vaccines need to protect against disease, not necessarily infection,” said Dennis Burton, an immunologist and vaccine researcher at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California.
And also this prescient bit:
“My guess would be that the day after someone gets immunized, they’re going to think, ‘I can go back to normal. Everything will be fine,'” he said. “They’re not going to necessarily realize that they might still be susceptible to infection.”
***
When the vaccines were being rolled out, the "vaccines don't prevent infection" was being used as a talking point by anti-vaxers, to the point where FactCheck.org made a page about it in January 2021. In a December 2020 interview with CNN Dr. Fauci explained why mask wearing was still necessary.
A Facebook video distorts a CNN interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci to falsely suggest that a COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the U.S doesn’t “protect you from covid.”
www.factcheck.org
"The clip begins with Cuomo asking Fauci why it will still be necessary to wear a face mask even after a person is vaccinated. Fauci explains this is because while the vaccine does an excellent job at protecting people from falling ill, it might not prevent infection — and initially there will still be a lot of virus circulating in the population.
“You could be prevented from getting clinical disease, and still have the virus that is in your nasopharynx because you could get infected,” he said. “We’re not sure, at this point, that the vaccine protects you against getting infected.”"
We do know that the original clinical trials, against wild type COVID resulted in high levels of symptomatic disease protection. Which did not hold up against the newer variants. But that is not the same as "intention to prevent infection entirely", which these examples clearly demonstrate was considered an unknown, a bonus. So if you are absolutely amazed, well, so am I.
