Why do they keep saying the vaccine will make people immune?

[madasamarchhare]

Just that really, Boris and the scientists keep referring to people as being immune once they’ve had the vaccine. I understand they are likely to suffer far less from the virus but as far as I’m aware they can still carry it and transmit it. I’m just wondering why they are referring to immunity when that is not really the case.

Because the definition of immunity is "the ability of an organism to resist a particular infection or toxin by the action of specific antibodies or sensitized white blood cells" and not anything to do with whether you can transmit it or not?

Since we just started vaccinating we won't have data for months on the effect on transmissibility, but it's a reasonable assumption that people who have cleared or substantially cleared the virus won't transmit it.

It also takes a few weeks for the immune system to fully respond to the vaccine.

They are being cautious in saying the effect on transmission is unknown. It is, because that wasn’t the endpoint the trials were set up to test. And if you think about it for a while, how would you demonstrate whether person X, who has been vaccinated, is capable of transmitting the virus?

However, once the number of people vaccinated starts to grow, it will be possible to tell through analysis of the data whether vaccination is reducing transmission, and by how much. The people who developed the vaccine believe that it will, but as yet they can’t prove it.

Dr John Campbell’s video today was really encouraging. Have a look if your mood needs buoying:

That’s great thank you for explaining that.

My understanding is that since it’s not what the trials were designed to show, they can’t prove the vaccines reduce transmission. Not that they don’t, but a scientist won’t come out and say something is true if it’s not been proven in a trial. In the same way the vaccine can’t possibly test future women’s fertility so they can’t say for sure it doesn’t have an effect. However there’s no reason to think it does, just that they can’t prove it doesn’t. Same as they say they can’t prove it gives antibodies for longer than a year - they can’t prove this because they haven’t tested it for this long. Yet people and the press pick up on these comments and just roll with it and we get headlines like the vaccine doesn’t stop transmission and will only give immunity for a matter of months.