There’s a really common and potentially damaging misunderstanding about what we know about coronavirus vaccines. Somehow the true statement:

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“The trials for the vaccines only measured disease symptoms. Efficacy against infection was not measured, but is being tested now.”
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Has turned into the untrue folk wisdom:

“The current vaccines do not prevent infection, they only prevent symptoms“.

It was always very likely that these vaccines also prevent infection and transmission. But to save time, they focused in the testing on symptoms. Now data is coming out in pre-print that confirms that infection and transmission are reduced. We will know more in the coming weeks.