F.D. Flam, Columnist

Covid-19 Vaccines May Cut Transmission as Well as Symptoms

Our vaccination message should be more hopeful.

It’s time for a more hopeful message.

Photographer: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images North America
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Once again, the Covid-19 health message is getting muddled. Even as officials and scientists urge the public to get vaccinated, they warn that after vaccination, we’ll still have to go on isolating and wearing masks.

It’s a mistake to oversimplify this way. We should be talking about using the vaccines to end the pandemic — not filling people with dread that they will be stuck with isolation and masks forever. The evidence is compelling that a strong, rapid vaccination campaign could render SARS-CoV-2 less of a threat than seasonal flu through building herd immunity.