I need to find more information about this - pronto. I've heard this mentioned very superficially before and I'm beside myself. I have never, ever, ever in my life heard it said of any vaccine that you will still contract the disease and be able to transmit it. What is it about this vaccine or virus? Are they all like that and if so, why do so few people know it.
Ummm....
I don’t mean this in a bad way, but maybe you should read up on how vaccines are made and how they work invivo (inside a living organisms).
Vaccines are researched to prevent diseases—not infections. Very, very big distinction. If researchers find out that a vaccine can also prevent infection, then great! But that wasn’t the objective.
In simpler terms, vaccines are made to help your body fight off the bad guy. It’s not designed to prevent the bad guy from coming at you. This isn’t some kind of Stars Wars like force field that gets applied around your body.
While your body is fighting off the infecting agent, you can still transmit that agent (virus) to others just as easily as someone without vaccination.
Clinical trials have been set up to see whether people become
less sick with the vaccine. And that’s where the 95% effectiveness for the COVID-19 vaccine comes from.
In order to determine whether a vaccine can
prevent an infection, you would need a human challenge trial. Literally infecting patients with the disease-causing agent. These types of trials have been very rare in the history of medicine for reasons you can imagine. Tamiflu being one of them.
So, people, please continue to social distance and wear masks just as you have been doing even after getting the vaccine.
At 95% effectiveness, if 20 million people gets the vaccine, 5% of them, equal to 1 million people, may have a false sense of security of protection. And those 20 million people can still possibly infect others without knowing.