> It was true then - it was what the math showed before Delta was around. True, but it was a very rough estimate (COVID R0 confidence intervals were, and to my

> It was true then - it was what the math showed before Delta was around. True, but it was a very rough estimate (COVID R0 confidence intervals were, and to my knowledge still are, very wide) and the potential for change due to new variants appearing was known and discussed very early in the pandemic (the March 2020 variant that ravaged Europe was already an "updated" version of the original virus). And all this didn't prevent our president from confidently appearing on TV and saying that when we reached 70% vaccination rate, we would have herd immunity. He even provided exact dates when that would be achieved, so some people actually expected that he would hold a press conference that day declaring the pandemic over. Of course, the messaging became diluted later on. While perhaps not an outright lie, at the very least it was a half truth, and unrealistic hyping.