The Morning newsletter from the NYT looks at how scicomm around covid vaccines has failed us. https://nyti.ms/2NDtlmy 

This pretty much tracks with my experience with eg people screaming in horror because I said I was gonna hug my mom after I got the vaccine as part of the Phase 2/3 trial.

"YOU CAN STILL GET COVID YOU CAN STILL TRANSMIT COVID STAY IN YOUR YURT FOREVER NEVER LEAVE IT OH GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING"

I'm hugging my mom on Christmas, motherfuckers. Because *the vaccine works*.

Please note that I hugged my mom and neither caught covid nor became a superspreader. Because the vaccine works.

In the, I guess kind of admirable, urge to be strictly accurate when speaking to the public, health officials forgot to stress those three little words: the vaccines work.

"Can you still catch covid?" yes, but it doesn't really matter anymore because the vaccines work.

"Can you still spread covid?" We haven't really studied that because there haven't been enough cases of covid in the volunteers because the vaccines work.

Somehow "we haven't studied whether vaccinated asymptomatic people can spread covid" became "vaccinated asymptomatic people are definitely spreading covid" in the public consciousness when a) it's unstudied and b) looks like the mRNA vaccines give sterilizing immunity so no.

Sterilizing immunity means *you're not catching the disease*. Your immune system sees the virus (in this case), mounts a response, and beats it down immediately. It does not get a chance to replicate and build up a viral load for you to shed.

"OK but what if you breathe in contaminated air and then breathe it out again"

Man did you just ask me that. Anyone non-vaccinated would have to be making out with you to catch it that way so they probably provided the contaminated air for you to inhale and are fucked anyway.

The vaccines work. The vaccines WORK. 95% effective means that 95% of people who get them DO NOT CATCH COVID and the remaining 5% who do catch a very mild case instead of a life-wrecking, deadly case. THE VACCINES WORK.

I'm part of the combined Phase 2/3 trials for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. I kinda got unblinded when my second shot gave me fever and chills and aches and pains and fatigue for 36 hours. They are tracking me for the next TWO YEARS.

I get blood tests and medical check ups and I get to fill out a little diary once a week and have to tell them if I seek emergency medical treatment for any reason, including eg cutting my own leg off with a chainsaw.

And if you come at me with "it hasn't been tested" I will scream because I AM PART OF THE TESTING, I signed up for this before it was "the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine" and was a string of letters and numbers. My data was in the papers that got it an emergency use authorization.

The vaccines work. Get vaccinated. Two weeks after your second shot, go get a hug. You'll feel better after that hug.