> It the bullshit echochamber of journalists and politicians that ended up defining the vaccine “working” as stopping transmissions, rather than serious cases. But that was not a claim from the manufacturers of the vaccines.
Pfizer stated[0] on Jan 26, 2021 that their vaccine "has been authorized for emergency use to prevent COVID-19 in individuals 16+." [emphasis added]
I am the wrong person for this debate but I think we laymen refer to the virus as covid but in medical terms covid is the disease/symptoms caused by the virus, not the virus itself. So that statement may still be compatible with the vaccine stopping getting sick from it, not transmissions.
cm2187 is correct. It was, and is, incredibly frustrating to see the news media and laymen talking about sars-cov-2 by saying covid or covid-19. That's always been the disease that sars-cov-2 causes. You can be infected with sars-cov-2 without having covid-19. In fact, based on China's latest massive population wide PCR testing about 90% of people infected with sars-cov-2 are asymptomatic and will spread it without ever having covid-19.
I'm sorry the science communication during the pandemic has been so terrible but there's really nothing suspicious or disengenous going on here.
Here is someone who should certainly know what they're talking about:
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, March 29, 2021:
"[O]ur data from the CDC today suggests, um, you know, that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don't get sick, and that it's not just in the clinical trials but it's also in real world data."
> Which papers did the CDC rep cite in her speech?
Dr. Walensky is much more than a CDC "rep"; she is[1] "an American physician-scientist who is the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Prior to her appointment at the CDC, she was the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Walensky is an expert on HIV/AIDS."
So Americans are supposed to not trust the imminently qualified head of the CDC unless she cites specific papers, which they should then go and read to "do their own research" and second guess her?
>So Americans are supposed to not trust the imminently qualified head of the CDC
Unfortunately, yes, name and status does not mean anything. Papers and replicable findings matter. Press conferences held by media figures don't. Arguments from authority require the authority figure to be talking in a non-laymen context. Video press conferences are for people that don't know science and, frankly, they're very dumbed down.
Pfizer stated[0] on Jan 26, 2021 that their vaccine "has been authorized for emergency use to prevent COVID-19 in individuals 16+." [emphasis added]
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20210126223727/https://twitter.c...