Important caveat from @DhruvKhullar: "we know for sure that the vaccines...prevent severe illness in almost all people who are inoculated...we’re not yet certain that the vaccines can prevent people from becoming infected or infecting others."https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/how-getting-vaccinated-will-and-wont-change-my-behavior …
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Since the beginning, the public health messaging has too often conflated "we don't fully know yet, but here's what the indications are" with "we have no idea" (not true) or "it won't happen". This has gravely weakened our warnings when we did make them.
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If this is a reference to the immunity issue, it's different. With respiratory viruses there's actually very little if any precedent for vaccines reliably preventing infection. We may be in new territory which would be great! But makes extrapolating from past experience dangerous
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Sure, the public can understand. I don't think people doing the messaging are particularly good at threading the needle.
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But we should. The alternative really damages credibility. So many ordinary people think we *know* the vaccine won't help with infectiousness while not a single immunologist I asked thinks that's actually the likely case, or even the current case, especially given existing data.
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