Positive and encouraging news on the frontlines of the battle against the coronavirus pandemic: new real-world data suggests that COVID-19 vaccines can prevent transmission of the coronavirus, in addition to protecting against symptomatic disease.
The preliminary information from Israel — where more than half the adults have been vaccinated, most with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine — showed those who received the vaccine did not develop symptoms or transmit the disease.
An absence of clear data on transmission has led health authorities to recommend vaccinated people be careful around unvaccinated people, particularly those at risk for severe COVID-19 infections.
“It looks like 90% reduction in asymptomatic transmission. So that’s really good,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
The promising news comes after President Joe Biden announced, during his first national primetime address last Thursday night, that he was ordering all states, territories and tribes to make all adults eligible to “get in line” for their vaccines by May 1. If Americans “do our part” in the coming weeks, he said, friends and families will be able to join together in small groups in time for the Fourth of July.
Biden’s primetime address came hours after signing “The American Rescue Plan Act,” his massive coronavirus relief bill into law, and the president commemorated the anniversary of the nation’s shutdown over the pandemic.
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