Who claimed this? In America, for the mRNA vaccines, preventing hospitalisation was the only endpoint even tested across the board in the pre-release studies.
“So even though there are breakthrough infections with vaccinated people, almost always the people are asymptomatic and the level of virus is so low it makes it extremely unlikely — not impossible but very, very low likelihood — that they’re going to transmit it,” Fauci said.
Repeat: "extremely unlikely — not impossible"
The CDC website says “All COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the United States are effective at preventing COVID-19.” https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/facts.htm...
Is there a claim that the vaccines don’t prevent infection?
Similar to AIDS (the disease) and HIV (the virus that causes AIDS).
For many viruses, you can have an infection without developing the disease. Especially if your immune system is primed, say by prior exposure and/or vaccination.
And while technically you're still transmissible while you have an active infection (because you have virus multiplying in you), your viral loads are also likely much lower than someone exhibiting symptoms (because your immune system is keeping things under control).
But for highly infectious diseases, sometimes even low doses are sufficient to infect someone around you.
Careful there with conflating the virus, SARS-CoV-2, with the disease, COVID-19, these two are not synonymous.
At no point does the CDC article even mention SARS-CoV-2, it only mentions "the virus", never actually naming it, yet it keeps mentioning the disease it causes by name.
Basically a bit like trying to talk about AIDS, without even mentioning HIV besides as "the virus".
That's also why the article doesn't really say anything about vaccine effects on virus infections, it's all about vaccines effects on the disease that comes post-infection.
It was the politicians/media who conflate SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 that assumed this also meant preventing infection, and the general public had little reason to distrust them at the time. Even among people who have kept up with this, these couple of months seem to have been pretty strongly memory-holed.
[0] https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
[1] https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/12/02/covid-19-vaccines...
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/who-says-no-evidence-coronav...
[3] https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2020/12/covid-...
Plenty of governments were pushing vaccination campaigns with tales of "herd immunity".
The Race for Herd Immunity [0]
[0] https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-vacci...
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
"Vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis"
It's totally insane how in recent months some people have started trying to rewrite the history of the vaccines here. This is like the fourth time or so I've seen that claim on HN in about as many days. Do you people really think this will work? The events in question took place last year, not a century ago. Rewriting the historical record isn't going to be that easy.
You’re partially right. Symptomatic illness was measured [1]. (Not PCR positivity.) Hospitalisation wasn’t.
That said, neither was transmission. Broader point holds.
> Do you people really think this will work?
Your comment is strong without dipping into bizarre conspiracy theory.
That the vaccine wasn’t sterilising was disappointing. But I remember clearly, in February 2021, getting it because I didn’t want to get sick. To the degree people felt misled, at least in America, that’s on the back of the news diet they choose to consume.