> If that's not enough, change the definition of "vaccines". Surely that should convince everyone!
Where have you ever seen a definition of the word "vaccine" saying or even implying that it "blocks transmission and infection"?
Where have you ever seen a definition of the word "vaccine" saying or even implying that it "blocks transmission and infection"?
Aug 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g...
> Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.
Today: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm
> Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.
I think this is what people are referring to.
Few, if any, vaccines have blocked infection. They work by preventing the onset of severe disease and usually by severely blunting infectiousness.
In both those cases the vaccines just blunted the transmission rate enough for r0 to drop below 1. We were also lucky that the responsible viruses had very stable mutation rates & no animal reservoirs unlike SARS-CoV-2. That meant they mostly died out over time once the transmission rate was reduced.
I mean, take this quote from Dr. Fauci himself:
> As a physician and as a scientist and a public-health person, I think it is not entirely correct to make this very strong dichotomy between waning protection against hospitalization and death and waning immunity against infection and mild-to-moderate disease. It is an assumption that it’s okay to get infected and to get mild-to-moderate disease as long as you don’t wind up in the hospital and die. And I have to be open and honest: I reject that. I think we should be preventing people from getting sick from COVID even if they don’t wind up in the hospital.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/fauci-boo...
You're demanding perfection and insisting that anything that falls short is worthless. That makes no sense.
Some countries pursued an eradication goal early on and some public health officials publicly spoke about their hope to achieve that, but while that was possible with the wild type it no longer is with the variants and animal reservoirs. It was a reasonable, rational strategy at the time, later undermined by the nature of new mutations.
You’re attempting to redefine the baseline of what’s considered acceptable for a vaccine, beyond what has ever been the case. In fact the vaccine most people would be aware of and have come into contact with, the flu vaccine, only partially protects against severe illness.
We have only been able to eradicate two viruses in human history through vaccination. In all other cases it’s a tool used to prevent worse outcomes and control the disease’s severity and spread.
Nonetheless, new vaccines that better target variants like Delta and Omicron, and hopefully any new ones that may emerge, are already in active development and trials. So we will see improvements in our ability to protect people against COVID-19.