Underselling the Vaccine.\u00a0And what else you need to know today.<\/strong><\/em> Early in the pandemic, many health experts \u2014\u00a0in the U.S.\u00a0and\u00a0around the world\u00a0\u2014 decided that the public could not be trusted to hear the truth about masks. Instead, the experts spread a misleading message, discouraging the use of masks.<\/p>\n Their motivation was mostly good. It sprung from a concern that people would rush to buy high-grade medical masks, leaving too few for doctors and nurses. The experts were also unsure how much ordinary masks would help.<\/p>\n But the message was still a mistake.<\/p>\n It confused people. (If masks weren\u2019t effective, why did doctors and nurses need them?) It delayed the widespread use of masks (even though there was\u00a0good reason\u00a0to believe they could help). And it damaged the credibility of public health experts.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people feel as though they may not be getting the full truth from the authorities, snake-oil sellers and price gougers have an easier time,\u201d the sociologist\u00a0Zeynep Tufekci\u00a0wrote early last year.<\/p>\n Now a version of the mask story is repeating itself \u2014 this time involving the vaccines.\u00a0Once again, the experts don\u2019t seem to trust the public to hear the full truth. …<\/strong><\/p>\n Right now, public discussion of the vaccines is full of warnings about their limitations:\u00a0They\u2019re not 100 percent effective. Even vaccinated people may be able to spread the virus. And people shouldn\u2019t change their behavior once they get their shots.<\/em><\/p>\n These warnings have a basis in truth, just as it\u2019s true that masks are imperfect. But the sum total of the warnings is misleading, as I heard from multiple doctors and epidemiologists last week.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s driving me a little bit crazy,\u201d Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown School of Public Health, told me.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re underselling the vaccine,\u201d Dr. Aaron Richterman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to save your life \u2014 that\u2019s where the emphasis has to be right now,\u201d Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine said.<\/p>\n The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are \u201cessentially 100 percent effective against serious disease,\u201d Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia, said. \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculously encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my best attempt at summarizing what we know:<\/p>\n + The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines \u2014 the only two approved in the U.S. \u2014 are among the best vaccines ever created, with effectiveness rates of about 95 percent after two doses. That\u2019s on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. And a vaccine\u00a0doesn\u2019t even need\u00a0to be so effective to reduce cases sharply and crush a pandemic.<\/p>\n + If anything, the 95 percent number\u00a0understates the effectiveness, because it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure. But turning Covid into a typical flu \u2014 as the vaccines evidently did for most of the remaining 5 percent \u2014 is actually a success. Of the 32,000 people who received the\u00a0Moderna\u00a0or\u00a0Pfizer\u00a0vaccine in a research trial, do you want to guess how many contracted a severe Covid case? One.<\/p>\n + Although no rigorous study has yet analyzed whether vaccinated people can spread the virus, it would be surprising if they did. \u201cIf there is an example of a vaccine in widespread clinical use that has this selective effect \u2014 prevents disease but not infection \u2014 I can\u2019t think of one!\u201d\u00a0Dr. Paul Sax\u00a0of Harvard has written in The New England Journal of Medicine. (And, no, exclamation points are not common in medical journals.) On Twitter,\u00a0Dr. Monica Gandhi\u00a0of the University of California, San Francisco, argued: \u201cPlease be assured that YOU ARE SAFE after vaccine from what matters \u2014 disease and spreading.\u201d<\/p>\n + The risks for vaccinated people are still not zero, because almost nothing in the real world is zero risk. A tiny percentage of people may have allergic reactions. And I\u2019ll be eager to see what the studies on post-vaccination spread eventually show. But the evidence so far suggests that the vaccines are akin to a cure.<\/p>\n Offit told me we should be greeting them with the same enthusiasm that greeted\u00a0the polio vaccine: \u201cIt should be this rallying cry.\u201d<\/p>\n The costs of negativity<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re underselling the vaccine,\u201d Dr. Aaron Richterman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to save your life \u2014 that\u2019s where the emphasis has to be right now,\u201d Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine said.<\/p>\n The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are \u201cessentially 100 percent effective against serious disease,\u201d Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia, said. \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculously encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n After asking Richterman and others what a better public message might sound like, I was left thinking about something like this:<\/p>\n We should immediately be\u00a0<\/em>more aggressive<\/em><\/a>\u00a0about mask-wearing and social distancing because of the new\u00a0<\/em>virus variants<\/em><\/a>. We should vaccinate people as rapidly as possible \u2014 which will require approving other Covid vaccines when the data justifies it.<\/em><\/p>\n People who have received both of their vaccine shots, and have waited until they take effect, will be able to do things that unvaccinated people cannot \u2014 like having meals together and hugging their grandchildren. But until the pandemic is defeated, all Americans should wear masks in public, help unvaccinated people stay safe and contribute to a shared national project of saving every possible life.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nWe explain why the vaccine news is better than you may think.<\/p>\n
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