1 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Monthly Scientific Discussion Thread - December 2024
This feels like a bit of a trite question, but I'm curious, in any case.
Early on in the pandemic, there was some focus on vaccines effectiveness to prevent transmission altogether. As the virus developed, the focus on this seemed to go by the wayside in favor of studying the effectiveness in lessening case severity.
Obviously vaccines shouldn't be expected to prevent infection, and it makes sense for various reasons to focus rather on vaccines effectiveness in mitigating the worst outcomes of an infection.
But I'm merely curious if the vaccines, in limited, short term exposure situations, are effective in preventing infection. Have there been any recent (past year or two) studies regarding this, or is there any information at all out there in regards to more recent vaccines and variants?
Comment by [deleted] at 02/12/2024 at 19:28 UTC
4 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Early on in the pandemic, there was some focus on vaccines effectiveness to prevent transmission altogether. As the virus developed, the focus on this seemed to go by the wayside in favor of studying the effectiveness in lessening case severity.
This is a bit of a misunderstanding/misremembering: while there were some early studies suggesting that the vaccine helped stop transmission, the data and recommendation revolved around symptom severity from the very beginning. I think was a major point of confusion back then and continues to be.
That said, here is a study from last year indicating that the vaccines still reduce transmission to some extent:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10073587/[1][2]