(Newser)
– For a brief moment last week, it appeared that the CDC gave us the news we were waiting for: Referring to the actual study of nearly 4,000 vaccinated people, the agency’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said Monday that “the data our … suggests … that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, do not get sick ”and thus, as many titles are extrapolated, they cannot transmit or spread COVID-19. But scientists quickly pushed this statement to New York Times, and the CDC itself later returned to Walensky’s comments. The bottom line? We just don’t know yet, experts say. Although the data is clear that coronavirus vaccines, regardless of brand, are excellent in preventing severe disease and death, it is not clear how well they effectively prevent infection – and if a vaccinated person can still become infected, they can still spread the virus.
Experts have pointed out that none of the vaccines are 100% effective, and Walensky’s comments could lead some to believe that they are. It is important to get these statistics correct, they say, because if people mistakenly believe that vaccines are 100% effective, they may no longer engage in public health measures, such as wearing masks. And then there is the issue of variants, which are spreading more and more around the world – and, in the case of some of them, they could evade the vaccine. At 21 universities, including the University of Colorado Boulder, a study aims to determine whether the Moderna vaccine prevents COVID transmission. An epidemiologist told Quartz last month that he estimates an answer to the “next few months” question, and the site provides a summary of a number of ongoing population-based vaccine studies. (Read more stories about the coronavirus vaccine.)