Commentary: The most pernicious anti-vaccine talking point

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Tue, 2021-11-23 19:11 — mike kraft

Analysis | The most pernicious anti-vaccine talking point Even those who have promoted vaccines are citing the context-free claim that they don't prevent the spread of the virus. They do. Aaron Blake Washington Post

Politics is a business that rewards saying things that are technically true — or at least not provably false — in the service of promoting one’s viewpoint.

Such is the case with the most ascendant and pernicious talking point among anti-vaccine activists, mandate critics and even just conservatives who are playing to the vaccine-skeptic crowd: that the coronavirus vaccines don’t prevent infections or the transmission of the virus.

The talking point is everywhere these days, including among those who say that they are pro-vaccine. It’s also utterly misleading, even in the cases in which it’s not presented in an utterly false manner.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a potential 2024 presidential contender whose comments and actions have trended in a more vaccine-skeptical direction, said last week, “We know — and the data is very clear at this point — covid vaxxes are not preventing infection.”

...former Fox host Jedediah Bila appeared on her old show “The View” and caused a stir by making a similar argument. She said that “the vaccine does not prevent you from getting covid and does not prevent you from transmitting covid.”

But this is also something we’ve essentially known from the start. The earliest studies of the coronavirus vaccine showed efficacy rates against infection in the 90th percentile and higher. That meant some vaccinated people were still going to become infected and potentially transmit the virus to others. ...

But the talking point is a prime example of misleading with perhaps-justifiable comments. While it’s true that the vaccines don’t completely stop infections and transmissions, they certainly reduce the spread by a large amount. And there is evidence — albeit preliminary and with some counterpoints — that they also stop transmissions in the fewer vaccinated people who become infected.

In other words, if the goal is not just to prevent the most serious cases — which the vaccines clearly do — but also to stomp out the virus more broadly, the vaccines unquestionably help. But these folks focus almost exclusively on the limits of the vaccine in a way that betrays their agenda and provides people with a slanted view of the vaccines’ effectiveness.

It provides a window into why unvaccinated Republicans, in particular, wrongly perceive no real benefit from vaccination. ...

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