WHO Chief Scientist Sounds the Alarm on Vaccine
December 28, 2020
(The Post Millennial) – At a press conference on Monday, World Health
Organization Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said that there is not
enough evidence that the new COVID vaccines prevent infection.
Dr. Swaminathan said “I don’t believe we have the evidence on any of the
vaccines to be confident that it’s going to prevent people from actually
getting the infection and therefore passing it on.”
“I’m interested in your views on how you think the vaccine will work in the
context of elimination?” A reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald asked.
The reporter noted that countries in her region have done well with
elimination, but asked “what does that mean, in the long term, where people
are vaccinated overseas. Does that ensure that they are not a risk
travelling to countries that have almost zero community transmission? Or do
you think that those who have been vaccinated will still need to quarantine
if they’re going to countries that have low transmission?”
“I think that’s a really important question,” Dr. Swaminathan replied, “and
I think that what we’re learning now and we continue to wait for more
results from the vaccine trials, is to really understand if these vaccines,
apart from preventing symptomatic disease and severe disease and deaths,
whether they are also going to reduce infections, or preventing people from
getting infected with the virus, precent them from passing it on or
transmitting it to others.
“I think that at the moment, I don’t believe we have the evidence on any of
the vaccines to be confident that it’s going to prevent people from
actually getting the infection and therefore passing it on. I think until
we know more, we need to assume that people who have been vaccinated also
need to take the same precautions until there’s a certain level of herd
immunity, of course, that’s been built into the population.
“This is a dynamic and evolving field. Our understanding and our
recommendations will change as we get more follow up data from these
trials.”
Her colleague Dr. Michael Ryan agreed. “I think it’s really important, he
said, “that we also reflect on the main objective of the vaccine in the
first roll out will be to prevent severe illness, prevent deaths, to
protect front line workers and vulnerable people in our society.”
He said that he hopes the vaccine is first offered to health care workers
globally, and that the “first and primary objective is to decrease the
impact that this disease is having on people’s lives, and therefore that
will be a major step forward in bringing the world back to some kind of
normal.”
Ryan said that “I think we should be able to get good control of the
virus,” but that full elimination required a “much higher degree of
efficiency and effectiveness in the vaccination programme.”
