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> Even during the pandemic response it was eventually acknowledged that early claims of vaccines preventing infection or even spread weren't supported by the tr

> Even during the pandemic response it was eventually acknowledged that early claims of vaccines preventing infection or even spread weren't supported by the trials. To the very best of my knowledge this is just misinformation. If you have a citation here, please provide it.

_heimdall 4mo ago
Is your concern with what the studies tested or whether it was acknowledged? I can find you links, though it will be directly to the original studies done for the covid vaccines. The studies were well written and clearly called out their methodology. The problem was with how the studies were interpreted and explained to the public, not with the studies themselves.
- _heimdall 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - defrost 4mo ago
    The issue specifically is: early claims of vaccines preventing infection or even spread weren't supported by the trials. Who made such stupid claims and __why__? My own recollection, from Australia watching the US, was the the US political administration of the time turned any scientific based discussion into a complete shit show - many images of cowered CDC employees sucking their faces in while Trump v1.0 babbled on about bleach and sunlight. From my first free of politics encounters with world class epidemiologists in 1980 or so I've not heard one claim that any vaccine had a 100% efficacy rate for both disease prevention and for eliminating spread - it has _always_ been a numbers game, like seat belts, of statistical reduction. Your own link agrees: Conclusions: A two-dose regimen of BNT162b2 conferred 95% protection against Covid-19 in persons 16 years of age or older. 95% protection is pretty good, but for all manner of reasons it's unusual to expect any vaccine to prevent 100% of all infections across millions of people or animals. Typically, in educated countries, phrases such as "prevent infection and spread*" are understood to mean that in the same manner as "seat belts prevent death and injury*" ( * exceptions expected )
    - _heimdall 4mo ago
      Okay got it, I didn't expect that was what you were taking issue with. At least in the US, we were constantly being told by our government leadership that we all needed to take the vaccine to stop the spread. Fauci, for example, claimed very early on that we needed herd immunity and would get thee with around a 60% vaccination rate. He both knew that number was too low for the hypothesis of herd immunity, raising it as time went on, and that herd immunity requires a treatment to prevent transmission, implying the vaccines were known to do that (they weren't). More egregiously there was a political push, picked up by the media as well, that basically boiled down to an argument that anyone refusing the vaccine is actively killing old people and children. They would go so far as to say unvaccinated people shouldn't be allowed into hospitals for care for unrelated health conditions. All that to say, my point was simply that this review paper seems to be making claims that would require research I never saw happen. Sadly the pay wall means I can't read their full claims, but even the overview of their results seem dubious.
      - estearum 4mo ago
        > They would go so far as to say unvaccinated people shouldn't be allowed into hospitals for care for unrelated health conditions. Do you believe that someone with unmanaged ebola or measles should be allowed to go into a hospital for a broken toe? Obviously there are possible pathogens for which this is a totally sensible position, and under uncertainty and strained resources the bar to get there gets much much lower.
        _heimdall 4mo ago
        You're raising drastically different scenarios in what I'm pretty sure would be a strawman argument, though yes people with Ebola do still get medical treatment. They are generally isolated and/or treated at a temporary unit setup during an Ebola outbreak, they aren't told no at the door because they're sick.
        estearum 4mo ago
        At the time people were talking about restricting COVID visitors, we really didn't know if we were dealing with something most similar to a seasonal cold, a serious flu, or the Spanish flu. > They are generally isolated and/or treated at a temporary unit setup during an Ebola outbreak, they aren't told no at the door because they're sick. Obviously this would be the result of not allowing unvaccinated people into hospitals. It is literally illegal in this country for us to simply "tell them no at the door."
vfclists 4mo ago
Where are the citations supporting your view that the vaccines were effective at preventing infection?
- estearum 4mo ago
  You can look up the clinical trial results
  - _heimdall 4mo ago
    One of them is already linked above. The trials didn't test efficacy in reducing infection or transmission, only in reducing symptoms.
- defrost 4mo ago
  _heimdall provides one here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755933
  - _heimdall 4mo ago
    The paper I shared actually doesn't support the claim of preventing infection. The trials showed a minimal risk of adverse responses to the injection itself and what appeared to be a reduced rate of symptoms. The trials didn't cover impact on infection rates at all, that would have required proactively testing every participant for infection which wasn't done. The trials only followed self reported symptoms, meaning all the study can indicate is a correlation with reduced symptomatic infection.
    - defrost 4mo ago
      The paper linked shows a reduced rate of COVID in the pool of people that received a vaccine candidate compared to the pool that received a placebo: A total of 43,548 participants underwent randomization, of whom 43,448 received injections: 21,720 with BNT162b2 and 21,728 with placebo. There were 8 cases of Covid-19 with onset at least 7 days after the second dose among participants assigned to receive BNT162b2 and 162 cases among those assigned to placebo; BNT162b2 was 95% effective in preventing Covid-19 Again, no vaccine ever really 100% prevents infection - what they do is reduce the number and severity of cases. Vaccines are literally created to increase the human bodies ability to fight off infection - efficacy varies by age and many other factors.

_heimdall 4mo ago

Is your concern with what the studies tested or whether it was acknowledged? I can find you links, though it will be directly to the original studies done for the covid vaccines. The studies were well written and clearly called out their methodology. The problem was with how the studies were interpreted and explained to the public, not with the studies themselves.

_heimdall 4mo ago
[flagged]
- defrost 4mo ago
  The issue specifically is: early claims of vaccines preventing infection or even spread weren't supported by the trials. Who made such stupid claims and __why__? My own recollection, from Australia watching the US, was the the US political administration of the time turned any scientific based discussion into a complete shit show - many images of cowered CDC employees sucking their faces in while Trump v1.0 babbled on about bleach and sunlight. From my first free of politics encounters with world class epidemiologists in 1980 or so I've not heard one claim that any vaccine had a 100% efficacy rate for both disease prevention and for eliminating spread - it has _always_ been a numbers game, like seat belts, of statistical reduction. Your own link agrees: Conclusions: A two-dose regimen of BNT162b2 conferred 95% protection against Covid-19 in persons 16 years of age or older. 95% protection is pretty good, but for all manner of reasons it's unusual to expect any vaccine to prevent 100% of all infections across millions of people or animals. Typically, in educated countries, phrases such as "prevent infection and spread*" are understood to mean that in the same manner as "seat belts prevent death and injury*" ( * exceptions expected )
  - _heimdall 4mo ago
    Okay got it, I didn't expect that was what you were taking issue with. At least in the US, we were constantly being told by our government leadership that we all needed to take the vaccine to stop the spread. Fauci, for example, claimed very early on that we needed herd immunity and would get thee with around a 60% vaccination rate. He both knew that number was too low for the hypothesis of herd immunity, raising it as time went on, and that herd immunity requires a treatment to prevent transmission, implying the vaccines were known to do that (they weren't). More egregiously there was a political push, picked up by the media as well, that basically boiled down to an argument that anyone refusing the vaccine is actively killing old people and children. They would go so far as to say unvaccinated people shouldn't be allowed into hospitals for care for unrelated health conditions. All that to say, my point was simply that this review paper seems to be making claims that would require research I never saw happen. Sadly the pay wall means I can't read their full claims, but even the overview of their results seem dubious.
    - estearum 4mo ago
      > They would go so far as to say unvaccinated people shouldn't be allowed into hospitals for care for unrelated health conditions. Do you believe that someone with unmanaged ebola or measles should be allowed to go into a hospital for a broken toe? Obviously there are possible pathogens for which this is a totally sensible position, and under uncertainty and strained resources the bar to get there gets much much lower.
      - _heimdall 4mo ago
        You're raising drastically different scenarios in what I'm pretty sure would be a strawman argument, though yes people with Ebola do still get medical treatment. They are generally isolated and/or treated at a temporary unit setup during an Ebola outbreak, they aren't told no at the door because they're sick.
        estearum 4mo ago
        At the time people were talking about restricting COVID visitors, we really didn't know if we were dealing with something most similar to a seasonal cold, a serious flu, or the Spanish flu. > They are generally isolated and/or treated at a temporary unit setup during an Ebola outbreak, they aren't told no at the door because they're sick. Obviously this would be the result of not allowing unvaccinated people into hospitals. It is literally illegal in this country for us to simply "tell them no at the door."

vfclists 4mo ago

Where are the citations supporting your view that the vaccines were effective at preventing infection?

estearum 4mo ago
You can look up the clinical trial results
- _heimdall 4mo ago
  One of them is already linked above. The trials didn't test efficacy in reducing infection or transmission, only in reducing symptoms.
defrost 4mo ago
_heimdall provides one here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755933
- _heimdall 4mo ago
  The paper I shared actually doesn't support the claim of preventing infection. The trials showed a minimal risk of adverse responses to the injection itself and what appeared to be a reduced rate of symptoms. The trials didn't cover impact on infection rates at all, that would have required proactively testing every participant for infection which wasn't done. The trials only followed self reported symptoms, meaning all the study can indicate is a correlation with reduced symptomatic infection.
  - defrost 4mo ago
    The paper linked shows a reduced rate of COVID in the pool of people that received a vaccine candidate compared to the pool that received a placebo: A total of 43,548 participants underwent randomization, of whom 43,448 received injections: 21,720 with BNT162b2 and 21,728 with placebo. There were 8 cases of Covid-19 with onset at least 7 days after the second dose among participants assigned to receive BNT162b2 and 162 cases among those assigned to placebo; BNT162b2 was 95% effective in preventing Covid-19 Again, no vaccine ever really 100% prevents infection - what they do is reduce the number and severity of cases. Vaccines are literally created to increase the human bodies ability to fight off infection - efficacy varies by age and many other factors.