I do think it is important to use the correct terminology here. This disease and the vaccines are already a huge spread of misinformation, so lets expand on the “sure” bit from this sentence a little. It is saying quite a lot:
I don’t think any expert nor any public health department is working with the goal of eradication in mind. So we should acknowledge the fact that these vaccines will probably not eradicate COVID. We will have people getting sick from COVID and we will have more COVID variants for the foreseeable future. Even after most people have been thoroughly vaccinated. And given the slow global spread of vaccines we will also probably see more lockdown measures to slow the spread of the virus beyond the current vaccine capabilities.
Now that said, remember that with the vaccines:
> we can make the virus largely irrelevant in terms of its impact on peoples lives. We can reduce the number of people who suffer long term consequences, the number of deaths, and the load on hospitals. We can make it harder for new, more dangerous, variants to arise.
>I don’t think any expert nor any public health department is working with the goal of eradication in mind
I believe I speak for many when I say, "I have no idea what the experts' have in mind" (and that's not a good thing).
So they're trying hard to get everyone vaccinated - a noble goal, perhaps, as our current roster of vaccines diminish symptoms and greatly reduce hospitalization and fatality rates. But..."Stop the spread, get vaccinated"...what? Like the parent said, all of the currently-approved intramuscular Covid-19 vaccines have proven to have a negligible effect on transmission rate.
Early on, experts probably made an educated guess or wish that these vaccines would be sterilizing and started information campaigns on this premise. When this turned out to be not true, their "Stop the spread, get vaccinated" became "You unvaccinated are the problem, you are holding us back, and you will be locked down immediately". Rather than address their mistake, rather than open up transparently, they doubled down on the lie. Not a good way to build trust.
> Like the parent said, all of the currently-approved intramuscular Covid-19 vaccines have proven to have a negligible effect on transmission rate.
Multiple studies show that vaccinated people have lower transmission than unvaccinated.
> In studies conducted before the emergence of the Delta variant, data from multiple studies in different countries suggested that people vaccinated with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines who develop COVID-19 generally have a lower viral load than unvaccinated people.(157, 165-169) This observation may indicate reduced transmissibility, as viral load has been identified as a key driver of transmission.(170) Studies from multiple countries found significantly reduced likelihood of transmission to household contacts from people infected with SARS-CoV-2 who were previously vaccinated for COVID-19.(171-176) For the Delta variant, early data indicate vaccinated and unvaccinated persons infected with Delta have similar levels of viral RNA and culturable virus detected, indicating that some vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 may be able to transmit the virus to others.(163, 164, 177-180) However, other studies have shown a more rapid decline in viral RNA and culturable virus in fully vaccinated people (96, 177, 180-182). One study observed that Delta infection in fully vaccinated persons was associated with significantly less transmission to contacts than persons who were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.(181) Together, these studies suggest that vaccinated people who become infected with Delta have potential to be less infectious than infected unvaccinated people.
I don’t think any expert nor any public health department is working with the goal of eradication in mind. So we should acknowledge the fact that these vaccines will probably not eradicate COVID. We will have people getting sick from COVID and we will have more COVID variants for the foreseeable future. Even after most people have been thoroughly vaccinated. And given the slow global spread of vaccines we will also probably see more lockdown measures to slow the spread of the virus beyond the current vaccine capabilities.
Now that said, remember that with the vaccines:
> we can make the virus largely irrelevant in terms of its impact on peoples lives. We can reduce the number of people who suffer long term consequences, the number of deaths, and the load on hospitals. We can make it harder for new, more dangerous, variants to arise.