Claiming things to be true that had no evidence is not the same thing as making decisions with partial information.

The mRNA shots were not tested at all for transmissibility yet we were told they prevented transmission.

Thank goodness some people have a memory longer than 2 weeks.

> The mRNA shots were not tested at all for transmissibility yet we were told they prevented transmission

Data that has come out since does seem to indicate it lowers transmission.

But I'm unclear if you're trying to say that this turned out to be false (the reduction in transmission), or that you're pointing out how some policies were driven by claims that didn't yet have strong enough evidence backing them up?

> Data that has come out since does seem to indicate it lowers transmission.

You can't retroactively justify a lie. If I think Bob is in jail and I tell you he's not in jail, it doesn't matter later if he turned out never to have been in jail.

The claims that were being made, and being used to push policy, were at the time something that hadn't even been tested.

I was asking clarification, because it all depends what we mean about truth and lie here.

If we're saying that reduction in transmission is a lie, well that might be false, as data now seem to indicate it does cause reduced transmission.

But if we're saying people claimed that they ran a trial specifically to investigate the effect on transmission, when no such trial took place, than I agree, this would be a lie.

Now I never felt like "official" sources said there were trials about transmission conducted and that proved massive reduction in transmission. But I can believe maybe there was one somewhere.

I do agree though that policies were made with claims that had sometimes poor evidence or incomplete data and experimentation. And we should all wonder and discuss what could have been done policy wise that would have been better. Was acting fast on low confidence better than waiting for high confidence? Would more educating and less regulating have had better results? Etc.

Take a look at some of the details about what I’m saying. If you still feel like you were told the truth then that is fine. No trials on transmission were done yet we were lead to believe they were. I was skeptical myself at first.

I was never under the impression that there were any trials specifically about transmission.

I can believe some people said or published articles saying that it would reduce transmission, I'm not sure they'd all claim it was from evidence that it did, as opposed to just inference that it would.

I'm interested where you feel you were led to believe it would?

I also find the word "truth" in your sentence a bit confusing, do you mean that you actually read from "official" publications that trials about transmissions had been conducted even when they hadn't? Or do you just feel like there were claims of reducing transmission made, and you later realized their rationale didn't even include trials specific to transmission?

I feel this is important. Because someone could have claimed it will reduce transmission, and based their reasoning on how pior vaccines typically have that effect, or how logically if it prevents infection or major infection, it should lower re-transmission. Or other rationales.

This wouldn't really be a lie, even though it could turned out to be wrong.

Every single public health official got up and told us that the mRNA shot prevented transmission. They had no science backing those claims.

I have a hard time believing you somehow missed fauci or Walenski or ALL of the mainstream media going on for months about the vaccine preventing transmission. There was even the famous Rachel Maddie “it stops, with every vaccinated person”.

So if public health officials didn’t believe it stopped transmission why attempt (and fail) to implement a mandate through OSHA?

I was even more curious, and it's pretty hard to search for what information was available on the web in early 2021. So don't judge me, but using ChatGPT is the fastest way I could think to get an idea.

This is what chatGpt thinks was the CDC statement in early 2021:

> In early 2021, the CDC indicated that while COVID-19 vaccines were highly effective at preventing severe illness, the ability of vaccinated individuals to transmit the virus, particularly the delta variant, was still under study. Vaccinated people could carry viral loads similar to unvaccinated individuals, but these would diminish quickly. The CDC differentiated between "breakthrough infections" (vaccinated people testing positive) and "breakthrough disease" (symptomatic cases), noting that both were uncommon. However, exact rates were unclear, leading to updated guidance for vaccinated individuals to be tested and mask up after exposure, especially in high-transmission areas. CDC's program focused on real-world vaccine effectiveness, including against variants and over time

Edit:

I also checked if ChatGPT knows if Fauci ever stated that vaccine would prevent transmission, this is what it had to say:

> Dr. Anthony Fauci initially stated on February 4, 2021, that there was insufficient data to confidently claim that vaccines prevent the transmission of COVID-19. However, by February 17, 2021, he referenced new studies indicating that vaccines might reduce transmission. Fauci cited research showing that vaccinated individuals had significantly reduced viral loads, suggesting a lower likelihood of transmission. Studies supported the idea that the lower the viral load, the lower the chance of virus spread. Fauci highlighted the public health implications, suggesting that vaccination could diminish the outbreak's dynamics

Do with that as you will, it's ChatGPT, not a thorough research into the historical archives, but its better than nothing.

> I have a hard time believing you somehow missed fauci or Walenski or ALL of the mainstream media going on for months about the vaccine preventing transmission

I guess I did. Axios has been my primary news source, along with New York Times and The Guardian/Wapo once in a while. Most of the time I just Google my way to the information I'm looking for. I don't consume any TV based news, or Twitter based news or any other such social media news, appart for HackerNews. I also generally went directly to the CDC website, and didn't use retellings from other publications or press conference.

By curiosity, I pulled up this archive from October 2020: https://web.archive.org/web/20201027130822/https://coronavir...

John Hopkins FAQ on the vaccine at the time. It states:

> Although the phase 3 clinical trials are designed to determine whether vaccinated individuals are protected against disease, it will also be important to understand whether vaccinated individuals are less likely to transmit the virus. This is likely but not ensured.

So that's at least one expert source corroborating my impression. I can't remember where I landed when I would have looked this up in 2020, but John Hopkins is a likely place I might have found.

> They had no science backing those claims

While I don't know why I didn't get the impression any official expert source told me it would prevent transmission and you feel many of them did tell you it would. I do still feel I need to make a correction on what you're saying. There's definitely science backing up the idea that vaccines can reduce transmission. It's based on historically observed outcomes from prior vaccines for other diseases, as well as on transmission models around herd immunity.

The idea that the mRna vaccines would for sure prevent transmission had no evidence, but there was scientific based prior for thinking it might at least reduce transmission, specifically of the exact strain it targets.

He's claiming that the vaccines weren't tested on whether they reduced transmission or not, but that we were told they would be super effective at reducing transmission (since the bureaucrats' only concern was to get as many people jabbed as possible, so they snake oil sold the vaccines as far more effective than they were).

He's not claiming that the vaccines don't reduce transmission at all, as best as I can tell.

But we decided on one singular truth and literally censored/banned and/or publically shamed all other variants.

You get vaccinated, you won't get ill, won't spread the virus, herd immunity, end of covid. At a time, this was the one and only acceptable truth, and everything else, from low efficiency of vaccine, sideffects, "you'll nfect grandma, even if you're vaccinated", "there will never be herd immunity" was considered a fringe conspiracy theory.

Choosing and promoting ideas is different from straight up censorship, shaming and worse.

Each time when I hear a phrase starting with "we ..." I feel a bit offended. Who is this "we" you use in the phrase? Does it include me? Because I am pretty sure I did not publicized that much what I decided on various topics.

If you would say "some people decided on one singular truth ...", then I will answer "maybe you should complain to them" (and I would find this positive). I found discussion during covid between such people (that have decided on a singular truth, either side) completely pointless. For me it was always a question of "what to do at that moment in time based on the known information", so more like "what did you found out last", not about "what is THE truth".