More old & new lies about COVID-19 vaccines preventing infection
Our last entry was about early claims (from politicians, medical experts, and even indications from Pfizer/Pfizer employees, aided by mainstream news outlets) of COVID-19 vaccines preventing transmission, contrasted with a recent viral interaction between a Dutch politician and a Pfizer employee admitting that “Pfizer did not know whether its COVID-19 vaccine prevented transmission of the virus before it entered the market in December 2020”. As is to be expected, mainstream news sources and fact checkers were not pleased with this development so countered with the claim that those disseminating the above are misleading readers and that Pfizer never claimed that its initial trial looked into the vaccine’s effect on transmission (see AP, Reuters, FactCheck.org). As such, for today’s entry we have more examples of grand claims about the vaccine’s effect on transmission.
That Pfizer did not claim this about their trial may be technically true, but Pfizer and its CEO did make suggestive comments. Pfizer stated in January 2021: “The ability to vaccinate at speed to gain herd immunity and stop transmission is our highest priority.” Source. In June 2021, Pfizer CEO Alert Bourla stated: “Although data shows that severe #COVID19 is rare in children, widespread vaccination is a critical tool to help stop transmission.” Source. And health experts and politicians did make direct grand claims about the vaccines being able to stop the spread. CDC director Rochelle Walensky stated: “vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick… it’s not just in the clinical trials, it’s also in real-world data”. Source. President Biden again indicated just this year that “the vaccine can stop the spread”. Source. As our final example, in August 2021 the then New South Wales (the most populous state in Australia) Premier Gladys Berejiklian stated: “get your hands on any vaccine you can. Keep yourself (and) your loved ones safe. It’s also doing a community service by helping stop the spread and keeping people out of hospital”. Source.
Okay then.
Note: Whether the vaccines were supposed to stop the spread, reduce the spread, or just reduce symptom severity, may now be somewhat of a moot point; you may be interested in the increasing evidence of negative effectiveness, that is, evidence that suggests COVID-19 vaccines, within months, actually make it more likely that vaccinees will get and even die from COVID-19.
Note: As in our previous entry, some questions you may like to ask. If the vaccines don’t prevent the spread of COVID-19, or even lower it, and even increase it, why have vaccine mandates? Why force it on those at little to no risk of COVID-19? Why discriminate against those who wished to wait and see? Why even allow the vaccines to be made available? When do the lawsuits start?