Fake News on CDC website?

"COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing infection, serious illness, and death. Most people who get COVID-19 are unvaccinated." https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/201...measure-effectiveness/breakthrough-cases.html

Does anyone see any problem with this? This is certainly not in line with what CDC director Rochelle Walensky said on CNN the other day, saying about the vaccines: "what they can’t do anymore is prevent transmission." http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2108/05/sitroom.02.html

 

Wow, this certainly got ALOT of attention! Thread fail!

 

Not really all that surprised.

 

But we believe science!

It's a cult of miss and disinformation

 

Absolutely!

 

I don't see any contradiction. Vaccines are indeed effective at preventing infection, illness and death but, as the guidance you link states, they're not 100% so it is still possible for an vaccinated person to be infected.

Vaccination would have never prevented transmission from breakthrough cases (though they might reduce the risk if they reduce the severity of infection), which is why other measures remain important, and that is what the quoted section of that interview was about.

 

Why do antivaxxists still bitch about this? Nobody is forcing them to get vaccinated or stay locked up, yet they constantly cry and complain that they are victims. LOL

Go, live your life in your Playland of rona. Get as sick as you want. But please, be nice to the health care workers as they try to make you feel better for your irresponsible decisions.

 

It’s only misinformation if liberals say so.

 

I’m not an anti vaxxer. Far from it. But it’s important for people to understand the limitations of vaccines to prevent infection and poor outcomes.

Why? Because depending on vaccination alone to protect from Covid is not wise. You can be fully vaccinated (even boostered) and still be very vulnerable to hospitalization and even death.

In Massachusetts, one of the few states that reports data on hospitalizations for Covid, the percentage of hospitalized Covid patients who were fully vaccinated at time of infection is over 47% and increasing. That means the burden on hospitals is shared nearly equally between vaccinated and unvaccinated. That means there are over 1500 people in Massachusetts hospitals who were fully vaccinated and still ended up very ill and in the hospital.

Now you may not care about their lives or the lives of the unvaccinated, but I do. I care enough to let people know the facts about vaccination and other very effective actions we can take to drastically reduce the chance of hospitalization and death when we get infected with the latest SARS-CoV-2 variant.

Relying on vaccination alone is not enough if your goal is saving lives, preventing hospitalization, and saving healthcare worker’s sanity. It’s irresponsible to rely on vaccination alone to prevent poor outcomes from Covid.

 

It's worth noting that was pretty much exactly what the CDC Director said in the interview transcript, it was just the OPs selective partial quote that sought to hide that.

 

To their credit the CDC does sometimes come around to the truth. Usually months or years late.

Perhaps you can tell me how these two statements are pretty much the same.

WALENSKY:
“Those breakthrough infections have mild illness. They are staying out of the hospital. They are not dying. And I think that that's the most important thing to understand.”

ME:
“You can be fully vaccinated (even boostered) and still be very vulnerable to hospitalization and even death.”

To be fair, Walensky’s comments are from August of 2021. Hospitalizations of fully vaccinated were just ramping up then.

Also, can you quote anything in Walensky’s comments advising people to take other actions to mitigate effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection besides vaccination? Anything at all about the danger of relying exclusively on vaccination to prevent poor Covid outcomes?

I don’t think it’s there. Why? Because the CDC isn’t particularly interested in public health. If they were, they would have been recommending scientifically proven lifestyle choices that drastically reduce the chances of poor outcomes from infection as I have been since April of 2020. Very little of what comes from the CDC is “pretty much exactly” what I post. Why? Because I apply science and honesty to public health and the CDC does not.

 

Oh, so I guess that tyrannical attempt at a vaccine mandate for 100 million workers was just a myth.

 

And so what do you think the CDC director meant when she said that the vaccines cannot prevent transmission anymore?

 

Bitch about what?

 

Actions such as what?

 

It's a quote from an unscripted interview and is identified as a rush transcript so may not be word for word, but as written it is a little poorly worded. That makes the tiny segment you chose to quote a bit unclear but if you read the entire statement in the context of the question being asked, the points she was making are much clearer.

What I took it to be referring to was the fact that if a vaccinated person does have a breakthrough infection, they can still pass that infection on to other people (especially unvaccinated people), which is why other preventative measures (such as masks, as she was talking about) are also necessary.

The fact remains that this doesn't contradict the idea that vaccinated people have significantly lower risks of infection and lower risks of serious outcomes if they are infected.

 

Your statement is an exaggeration (the fully vaccinated aren't very vulnerable, and still significantly less vulnerable that the unvaccinated). As a general principle though, you are pushing in the same direction as her overall narrative (rather than selective, out of context quotes). Vaccination isn't perfect and other measures are also required.

Her quoted statement here reads like an exaggerated generalisation out of context but is more reasonable in the wider context of her entire answer to that question. The statement you selectively quote here was (and mostly still is) true most of the time. Some vaccinated people still get infected and some of those will have more serious illness and require hospitalisation. They key thing is that will cover a significantly smaller proportion of the vaccinated population than the unvaccinated population. The recent issue is that overall infection rates have been ramping up with the Omnicom variant. That means numerically more vaccinated people will be infected and thus numerically more will be hospitalised but it will still be a significantly smaller proportion than of the unvaccinated population.

Yes. Immediately after the statement quoted in the OP, the exact reason she made the statement quoted in the OP in fact;

 

I think the CDC should have a disclaimer. Maybe something like this:

CDC does not allow misinformation. However, please note that information could occasionally contain content in violation of our policies prior to our staff intervening. We urge you to seek reliable alternate sources to verify information you read in this site.

 

Ag, I see. You are using the same argument the anti maskers and anti vaxxers have been using all along. It’s only a “small percentage” that get sick and die, so _______ mitigation isn’t necessary! I love it. Nowhere have I made the argument the same percentage of vaccinated and unvaccinated end up hospitalized. Your argument is a strawman as well. I find it disturbing you can write off human suffering and death just because it’s a smaller percentage than some other demographic.

Please present evidence anything she mentioned prevent poor outcomes after infection. Not your unsubstantiated opinion, some solid evidence in the form of a study or meta analysis.

 

I said the exact opposite of that; "Vaccination isn't perfect and other measures are also required.".

The argument I'm primarily making in this thread is that the quotes from the CDC Director in the interview transcript are being misrepresented to create the false impression that they contradict the general CDC statements and guidance.

My only issue with your statement was that I think you're overplaying the limitations of vaccination when you say the vaccinated are very vulnerable. We both seem to be reaching a similar conclusion (and one in line with the CDC), but how that message is presented is vital given the amount of politics, spin, misunderstanding and misrepresentation going on around the topic.

That isn't the topic, the thread is about prevention of infection and prevention of transmission to others in the event of infection. I'm not willing to get in to anything else she did or didn't say in the interview until we're clarified the misrepresentation in the OP.

 

Ah, someone who cares about public health! Refreshing.

Here are a few.

Adequate sleep.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670170/

Healthy diet:

https://gut.bmj.com/content/70/11/2096

Exercise:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/19/1099

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/19/1099

I find it deeply disturbing this information is not being disseminated by public health entities and physicians. It’s very clear at this point public health is NOT top priority.

 

Bitch about lockdowns that don't exist.
Bitch about masks because whaaaaa.
Bitch about vaccines cause their afraid of needles.

 

You also said this.

My argument is we should care about all infections and hospitalizations, not just the unvaccinated. The fact unvaccinated are more likely to be hospitalized is irrelevant. I’m concerned with everyone’s health.

Here is Walensky’s statement August 2021.

Here is the CDC statement December 2021

I would say the second statement published 3-4 months after Walensky’s statement is not consistent with the first statement and certainly inconsistent with what was known about viral loads of breakthrough infections at that time.

I do agree it’s difficult to compare statements made months in the past to what we see today. But the CDC is chronically out of date and publishes combinations of dis/misinformation. This is a very minor case compared to them publishing directives against use of N95 masks for example based on shortages that were actually not shortages but huge oversupply.

I don’t have a political angle nor do I have emotional attachment to vaccination. I base my posts on the best empirical evidence available. That evidence shows the vaccinated are at higher risk of Covid infection and poor outcomes (especially hospitalization) than is typically reported by media and public health entities. I see no value in giving people a false sense of security in ONE mitigation when we have numerous others at our disposal that the public are unaware of. So unaware of that when I present them I’m called a liar etc. This lack of information from “public health” entities is unacceptable.

The poster I responded to was making the case (intentionally or unintentionally I don’t know which) that vaccination is the only thing that matters relative to infection AND hospitalization.

If you want to limit our exchange to infection and transmission my argument is the same because we have numerous ways to prevent infection we aren’t utilizing as well. Numerous very effective lifestyle choices that prevent infection AND poor outcomes.

I don’t see how Walensky saying vaccination doesn’t prevent transmission is compatible with advice months later that infected individuals “can be contagious” when we knew at that point they were contagious and were transmitting at nearly the same rate as the unvaccinated.

 

Is the CDC correct on it's website or not?

 

Nicely written!