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Will Vaccinated People Become Silent Spreaders of COVID-19?
Vaccination efforts are starting to ramp up around the world, but a question remains open:
Does the COVID-19 vaccine prevent infection or does it only prevent illness?
People’s reactions to this have gotten, shall we say, interesting. Notorious British tabloid The Daily Mail ran a story only yesterday in which it said that vaccinated people could become “Covid-19 super-spreaders.” (To give an idea of the quality of this rag, the capitalization error is theirs). I won’t link to them, but you can find it easily enough.”
Now, what the article is saying is that you can’t just go throw a wild party immediately after being vaccinated, which is true. But the headline reflects the kind of things being said. I’ve even heard that vaccinating people will increase case counts!
So, What’s the Skinny on Preventing Transmission?
The short answer is: We don’t know.
The long answer is:
The trials of COVID-19 vaccine were measured by prevention of disease, which is not the same thing as infection. We couldn’t afford to wait the two years it would take to be really sure one way or the other.