> SARS-CoV-2 wasn’t like that. It evolved too fast, so the realistic goal shifted from elimination to control. That's not what happened here though. These vacc

> SARS-CoV-2 wasn’t like that. It evolved too fast, so the realistic goal shifted from elimination to control. That's not what happened here though. These vaccines never stopped transmission, they suppressed symptoms and people just hoped/assumed they stopped transmission. In late 2020 this was an open question people were talking about, because in development and safety testing they never even looked at transmission, only symptoms. Pfizer's announcement in particular was very careful to distinguish SARS-CoV-2 from COVID-19, intentionally not saying anything about infection/transmission. So they were being rolled out before we had any answers there. It became clear only a couple months later - well before any major "new variants" - that people were still getting infected at the same rates as before vaccination.