Right now, public discussion of the vaccines is full of warnings about their limitations, like: They’re not 100 percent effective. And: Even vaccinated people may be able to spread the virus. And: People shouldn’t change their behavior once they get their shots.

These warnings have a basis in truth, just as it’s true that masks are imperfect. But the sum total of the warnings is misleading.

“It’s driving me a little bit crazy,” Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown School of Public Health, told me.

“We’re underselling the vaccine,” Dr. Aaron Richterman at Penn said.

“It’s going to save your life — that’s where the emphasis has to be right now,” Dr. Peter Hotez at Baylor said. (3/x)

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are “essentially 100 percent effective against serious disease,” Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said. “It’s ridiculously encouraging.”

(4/x)

Dr. Offit told me we should be greeting the Covid vaccines with the same enthusiasm that greeted the polio vaccine: “It should be this rallying cry.”

Here’s my attempt at summarizing what we know – and don’t yet know – about the vaccines. (fin) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/briefing/donald-trump-pardon-phil-spector-coronavirus-deaths.html?action=click&module=Briefings&pgtype=Homepage