Coronavirus vaccine wordplay Defining effective proves elusive

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

If the coronavirus vaccines are so effective â€" “highly effective,” as Anthony Fauci has claimed â€" then why do the vaccinated test positive so frequently for COVID?

“20% of COVID infections in June occurred among vaccinated, LA County health says,” City News Service reported just this week.

This is just one of the questions that needs to be addressed by health authorities pushing the vaccine and characterizing those reluctant to get the vaccine as selfish, dangerous, even criminal to the point of needing to be confined to house and home.

“Geraldo Rivera rips unvaccinated nursing home workers: ‘No Vaccine, no work,’” one headline from The Hill recently stated.

“No Vaccine, no work, no school, no in-person shopping,” he wrote on Twitter. “You have a right not to be vaccinated. I have the right to protect my kids.”

That’s fear-mongering idiot talk, right there. And he’s not alone.

“What Should We Do with the Unvaccinated? ‘Lock Them Up!’” blasted a writer on Op-Med back in April.

So people have taken the vaccine. People have stood in line and waited outside pharmacy drive-throughs to get the vaccine. People have listened to Fauci, who has said at various points in recent history that the vaccines are safe, the vaccines are effective, the vaccines are safe and effective against even the variants of the coronavirus.

“Fauci: Covid vaccines appear effective against new strains,” NBC News reported in January.

“Video: Fauci Says Coronavirus Vaccines Are Highly Effective,” The New York Times reported in April.

“Dr. Anthony Fauci: Vaccines are safe and effective against the delta variant,” CNBC Television reported just this week.

So why are the vaccinated testing positive?

A definition of the word “effective” seems in order.

Effective to the general public would mean: Hey, I got the shot, I’m not gonna get COVID.

Effective in the world of science â€" which has come to be a place of obfuscation and wildly random interpretation â€" means something different. It means sort of effective. Sort of working. Or, in the world of vaccines, it can kinda protect you â€" or kinda not.

Kinda 39% protect you, as researchers in Israel have just found.

From Bloomberg, the latest: “Pfizer Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine provided a strong shield against hospitalization and more severe disease in cases caused by the contagious delta variant in Israel in recent weeks, even though it was just 39% effective in preventing infections, according to the country’s health ministry.”

Keep reading.

“The vaccine,” Bloomberg continued, “developed with BioNTech SE, provided 88% protection against hospitalization and 91% against severe illness for an unspecified number of people studied between June 20 and July 17.”

Meanwhile, from the United Kingdom, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that two Pfizer-BioNTech doses will provide 88% protection from the delta variant and 94% protection from the “alpha variant” of the coronavirus.

Effective seems in the eyes of the beholder.

Combine that with medical bureaucrats who’ve recently recommended the vaccinated continue to wear face masks, indoors and out, in some cases, and the real question here is not “why aren’t you vaccinated?” â€" but rather, “why are you?”

What it comes down to in America is individual choice.

That’s the line that must not be crossed. Waiting for a truthful definition of “effective” in regards to the vaccine is hardly radical or unreasonable. 

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.

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