The four phases of the establishment's 2020-2022 vaccine misinformation

A chronological collection of major scientific and public statements about the COVID-19 vaccine's impact on asymptomatic infection, transmission, and the generation of herd immunity

I think about the American establishment’s science communication about the COVID-19 vaccine and its impact on transmission of the virus in four phases:

1. Science;

2. Pseudoscience;

3. Persecution;

4. Resignation and return to science.

The science phase, which lasted for all of 2020, was characterized by mostly good communication of science and its nuances to the public. Most people was on the same page and honest about the potential of the COVID-19 vaccine to “end the pandemic” during this period: the vaccine probably couldn’t do it.

The pseudoscience phase, which started in March of 2021, was characterized by a reversal of early science communication, by gross misinformation about the vaccine.

The persecution phase, which started around the middle of 2021, piggybacked off the pseudoscience phase. Because the benefits of the vaccine were exaggerated and because its impact on transmission was massively exaggerated, less educated members of the American medical establishment, legal establishment, and media began to demand the persecution of unvaccinated citizens. Mandates were passed. Civil rights were violated. The unvaccinated were scapegoated for something that they were never responsible for.

The resignation phase, which started at the end of 2021 and 2022, when public health officials began widely discussing the concept of “endemicity” and gave up the idea of eradicating COVID-19.

This post will be updated regularly in the coming several weeks.

Bill Gates, Yahoo! Finance, July 30, 2020:

“During 2021 we should be able to manufacture a lot of vaccines, and that vaccine’s key goal is to stop transmission, to get immunity levels up that you get almost no infection whatsoever.” (link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, Yahoo! Finance, October 26, 2020:

“If the vaccine also allows you to prevent initial infection, that would be great. But what I would settle for, and all of my colleagues would settle for, the primary endpoint, is to prevent clinically recognizable disease.” (link)

Tal Zak, Chief Medical Officer of Moderna, Axios on HBO, November 23, 2020:

“I think we need to be careful, as we get vaccinated, not to overinterpret the results. Our results show that this vaccine can prevent you from being sick. It can prevent you from being severely sick. They do not show that they prevent you from potentially carrying this virus transiently and infecting others.” (link)

Larry Corey, Professor, Founder and Former Director of Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Business Insider, November 27, 2020:

“We have no knowledge about whether [the COVID-19 vaccine] prevents you from actually acquiring the infection at all.” (link)

STUDY

Widge et al., December 3, 2020

Durability of Responses after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-1273 Vaccination

Comment: Claimed "a slight expected decline in titers of binding and neutralizing antibodies" from the Moderna vaccine. Used a geometric scale on the y-axis to conceal a large decline. Lead author was a scientist at NIAID.

Khoury et al. on May 17, 2021 analyzed these data and found a 65-day half-life for antibody titers following vaccination.

(link, link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, CNN, December 10, 2020:

“We're not sure, at this point, that the vaccine protects you from getting infected.” (link)

Alvin Powell, Harvard Staff Writer, Harvard Gazette, December 10, 2020:

The nation’s top infectious disease doctor offered a timeline for ending the COVID-19 pandemic this week, saying that if the coming vaccination campaign goes well, we could approach herd immunity by summer’s end and “normality that is close to where we were before” by the end of 2021. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Wednesday that that estimate is dependent on significant numbers of Americans being willing to be inoculated with one of several vaccines in various stages of development. If 75 percent to 80 percent of Americans are vaccinated in broad-based campaigns likely to start in the second quarter of next year, then the U.S. should reach the herd immunity threshold months later. If vaccination levels are significantly lower, 40 percent to 50 percent, Fauci said, it could take a very long time to reach that level of protection.” (link)

Marc Lipsitch, Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, CCDD Blog, December 17, 2020:

“Evidence from animal and human studies to date and evidence from other infections leads this observer to think that the vaccine may reduce transmission 50-70%. This is not a confident prediction and could well be wrong in either direction.” (link)

David Heymann, Professor of London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, WHO Press Conference, December 28, 2020:

“The world has hope for herd immunity, that somehow transmission would be decreased if enough persons were immune. This concept has been widely misunderstood and still cannot be predicted because of our lack of understanding of immunity and its duration. It appears at present that the destiny of SARS Coronavirus 2 is to become endemic, as have four other human coronaviruses.” (link, link)

Soumya Swaminathan, WHO Chief Scientist, WHO Press Conference, December 28, 2020:

“At the moment I don't believe we have the evidence of any of the vaccines to be confident that it's going to prevent people from actually getting the infection and therefore being able to pass it on.” (link, link)

Mike Ryan, WHO Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, WHO Press Conference, December 28, 2020:

“The first and primary objective is to decrease the impact that this disease is having on people’s lives.” (link, link)

Mike Ryan, WHO Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, WHO Press Conference, December 28, 2020:

“The second phase is then looking at how will this vaccine affect transmission. … We just don’t know enough yet about length of protection and other things to be absolutely able to predict that. … A decision then to move towards elimination or eradication of the virus requires a much higher degree of efficiency and effectiveness in a vaccination programme and all of the other control measures. And we still don’t know, based on virus evolution, based on so many other things. The likely scenario is the virus will become, as David Heymann said previously, another endemic virus, a virus that will remain somewhat of a threat, but a very low-level threat in the context of an effective global vaccination programme.” (link, link)

Pfizer scientists, New England Journal of Medicine, December 30, 2020:

“Further study is required to understand … whether the vaccine protects against asymptomatic infection and transmission to unvaccinated persons.” (link)

Paul Hunter, Professor at the Norwich School of Medicine, January 19, 2021:

"I doubt that we will be able to stop transmission, either by vaccination or natural immunity. [The virus] will continue to spread for decades to come. Repeat infections every few years may be what prevents us getting a severe disease in 10 years’ time rather than big gaps between mini-epidemics." (link)

Bill Gates, MSNBC, January 28, 2021:

“Everyone who takes the vaccine is not only protecting themselves but reducing their transmission to other people, allowing society to get back to normal.” (link)

Kate Grabowski and Justin Lesser, Professors at JHU and UNC, Twitter, February 16, 2021:

“We are confident vaccination against COVID-19 reduces the chance of transmitting the virus.” (link)

Marc Lipsitch, Professor at Harvard, Twitter, February 16, 2021:

“I have been very cautious due to limited evidence on transmission effects but agree with the authors that a large transmission effect is the best explanation of the limited evidence to date. Zero would indeed be beyond shocking.” (link)

Marc Lipsitch, Professor at Harvard, Twitter, February 16, 2021:

“Subjectively [there might be a reduction in transmission of about] 50% but trying to get a better quantitative handle on the meaning of the data so that may change.” (link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, White House COVID-19 Task Force Press Conference, February 17, 2021:

“But the looming question is, if a person gets infected despite the fact that they’d been vaccinated, we referred to that as a breakthrough infection. Does that person have the capability of transmitting the infection to another person? Namely, does vaccine prevent transmission? Some studies are pointing in a very favorable direction.” (link, link)

STUDY

Wheatley et al., Nature Communications, February 19, 2021:

"This study indicates that SARS-CoV-2 immunity after infection might be transiently protective at a population level. Therefore, SARS-CoV-2 vaccines might require greater immunogenicity and durability than natural infection to drive long-term protection."

(link)

Comment: This study showed that COVID-19 behaved the same immunologically as every other coronavirus. See here and here.

STUDY

Hall et al., SSRN, February 22, 2021:

"A single dose of BNT162b2 vaccine demonstrated vaccine effectiveness of 72% (95% CI 58-86) 21 days after first dose and 86% (95% CI 76-97) seven days after two doses in the antibody negative cohort."

(link)

Comment: This is an excellent study that properly measures and reports asymptomatic infection.

STUDY

Dagan et al., NEJM, February 24, 2021:

92% reduction in documented infection
90% reduction in imperfect asymptomatic infection proxy

(link)

Comment: This study is not very useful. Hall et al. from February 22, 2021 is more scientifically rigorous with respect to estimating the impact of the vaccine on asymptomatic infection.

Alvin Powell, Harvard Staff Writer, Harvard Gazette, February 25, 2021:

“Galit Alter, speaking during a noontime briefing Wednesday by the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, said that even if our most effective vaccines’ effectiveness falls to 70 percent from 95 percent, the world still has a path to achieving the herd immunity that can end the pandemic.” (link)

STUDY

Pawlowski et al., MedRxiv, February 27, 2021:

94-95% reduction in non-random PCR diagnosis.

(link)

STUDY

Lipsitch and Kahn, MedRxiv, February 28, 2021:

"Hypothetically, it is possible that the 70-95% protection offered by these vaccines against symptomatic disease could (i) be purely protection against symptoms with no impact on infection or transmission, (ii) be largely or entirely due to protection against infection, suggesting an impact on transmission similar to the efficacy against symptomatic infection; or (iii) be 70- 95% protective against infection and moreover reduce the shedding of virus by those who do become infected, in which case protection against transmission could be even greater than that against symptomatic disease."

(link)

Comment: This paragraph succinctly frames the findings of all of the observational studies on transmission to come.

Kristin Bibbins-Domingo, Professor at UCSF School of Medicine, LA Times, March 10, 2021:

"Strictly speaking, no one believes the vaccine doesn't stop transmission to some extent. We just don't know the extent." (link)

STUDY

Shah et al., Medrxiv, March 21, 2021:

“Household members of vaccinated healthcare workers had a lower risk of COVID-19 case compared to household members of unvaccinated healthcare worker … (HR 0·70, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0·63 to 0·78). … Compared to the period before the first dose, the risk of documented COVID-19 case was lower at ≥ 14 days after the second dose for household members (HR 0·46 [95% CI 0·30to 0·70]).” (link)

Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director, MSNBC, March 29, 2021:

“Vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick, and it’s not just in the clinical trials but also in real world data.” (link, link)

Rachel Maddow, MSNBC host, MSNBC, March 29, 2021:

“Now we know that the vaccines work well enough that the virus stops with every vaccinated person. A vaccinated person gets exposed to the virus? The virus does not infect them, the virus cannot then use that person to go anywhere else. I cannot use a vaccinated person as a host to go get more people.” (link, link)

Monica Gandhi, Professor at UCSF, NBC Bay Area, March 30, 2021:

“Essentially vaccines block you from getting and giving the virus. … You can feel safe as a vaccinated person going indoor dining, going to a gym, going to the movies, going to places you did not feel safe before. … Now they can rewrite guidelines and say vaccinated people can be around unvaccinated people even without masks and distancing.” (link, link)

Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO, Twitter, April 1, 2021:

“Excited to share that updated analysis from our Phase 3 study with BioNTech also showed that our COVID-19 vaccine was 100% effective in preventing COVID19 cases in South Africa. 100%!” (link)

April 19, 2021: Vaccine rollout in all states for all aged 16+

May 10, 2021: Vaccine rollout for 12-15 year olds

Patty Murray, United States Senator, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, May 11, 2021:

“India is a reminder that we cannot end the pandemic here until we end it everywhere.” (link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, CBS’s Face The Nation, May 16, 2021:

• “What the issue is, is that the level of virus in your nasal pharynx, which is correlated with whether or not you were going to transmit it to someone else, is considerably lower. So even though there are breakthrough infections with vaccinated people, almost always the people are asymptomatic, and the level of virus is so low, it makes it extremely unlikely, not impossible, but very, very low likelihood that they are going to transmit it.” (link)

• “When you get vaccinated, you not only protect your own health and that of the family but also you contribute to the community health by preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community. In other words, you become a dead end to the virus. And when there are a lot of dead ends around, the virus is not going to go anywhere.” (link)

STUDY

Khoury et al., May 17, 2021

Analyzed the data from Widge et al. and found a 65-day half-life for antibody titers following vaccination. It also showed that this corresponded to a much-reduced protection from infection while the protection reduction against severe disease was much attenuated.

(link)

President Joe Biden, Remarks by President Biden on the COVID-⁠19 Response and the Vaccination Program, May 17, 2021:

“Those who are not vaccinated will pay — end up paying the price.” (link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, MSNBC, May 17, 2021:

• “When people are vaccinated, they can feel safe that they are not going to get infected, whether they’re outdoors or indoors. … There will always be breakthrough infections, but given the denominator of people who are vaccinated, that’s a very, very rare event. So, the bottom line trust is good news. And in many respects, it really is a big, you know, endorsement for why people should be getting vaccinated.” (link, link)

• “The bottom line of why this recommendation [that if you’re vaccinated, you don’t have to wear a mask indoors] was made was to assure people that when they get vaccinated, they can feel safe, whatever circumstance they are under.” (link, link)

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, Senate Appropriations Committee, May 19, 2021:

"Data have demonstrated even if you were to get infected during post-vaccination, you can’t give it to anyone else.” (link, link, link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, MSNBC, June 2, 2021:

• “When people are vaccinated they can feel safe that they are not going to get infected. We have all the vaccines we need. We just need our people to take it a) for their own protection of their family but also to break the chain of transmission.” (link)

• “You want to be a dead end to the virus. So when the virus gets to you, you stop it. You don’t allow it to use you as the stepping stone to the next person.” (link)

Noam Chomsky, professor, linguist, political commentator, Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal, June 2, 2021:

“People who refuse to accept vaccines, I think the right response for them is not to force them to, but rather to insist that they be isolated.” (link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, CNN, June 3, 2021:

“Given the country as a whole, the fact that we have now about 50 percent of adults fully vaccinated and about 62 percent of adults having received at least one dose, as a nation, I feel fairly certain you're not going to see the kind of surges we've seen in the past.”

Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director, Press Briefing by White House COVID-⁠19 Response Team and Public Health Officials, July 1, 2021:

“Preliminary data from a collection of states over the last six months suggest 99.5 percent of deaths from COVID-19 in these states have occurred in unvaccinated people.”

Comment: This is because included in these six months were months where almost everyone was unvaccinated...

Jeffrey Zients, 31st White House Chief of Staff, Press Briefing, July 1, 2021:

“We will continue to share tens of millions more U.S. doses over the summer months as we help lead the fight to end the pandemic across the globe.” (link)

Chuck Todd, MSNBC Host, MSNBC Meet the Press Daily, July 1, 2021:

“Literally the only people dying are the unvaccinated. For those of you spreading misinformation, shame on you. Shame on you. People are needlessly dying because of your misinformation. Think about it. I don’t know how some of you sleep at night who are doing this for a living on television.” (link)

Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director, Press Briefing by White House COVID-⁠19 Response Team and Public Health Officials, July 16, 2021:

“This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” (link, link)

President Joe Biden, July 16, 2021:

Q: "On COVID misinformation, what's your message to platforms like Facebook."

President Biden: "They're killing people. Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated and they're killing people." (link)

Mika Brzezinski, Morning Joe Host, MSNBC, July 16, 2021:

“Nearly every death from COVID-19 could have been prevented. … Jen Psaki said a large amount of misinformation is being spread by a relatively small number of people.” (link)

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook CEO, Private Messages to Mark Zuckerberg, July 16, 2021:

Referring to Biden’s comments: “Did Trump say things this irresponsible? If Trump blamed a private company not himself and his govt, everyone would have gone nuts.”

Leana Wen, Former Baltimore Health Commissioner, July 16, 2021:

“People are not behaving honorably. The unvaccinated are basically saying "Well, it's open season for me. I can do whatever I want as well.” (link)

Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director, Press Briefing by White House COVID-⁠19 Response Team and Public Health Officials, July 20, 2021:

“

President Joe Biden, CNN Town Hall, July 21, 2021:

• “If you're vaccinated, you're not going to be hospitalized, you're not going to be in an ICU unit, and you are not going to die.”

• “We're not in the position where we think that any virus, including the Delta virus, which is much more transmissible and more deadly in terms of unvaccinated people, the -- the various shots that people are getting now cover that. You're OK. You're not going to -- you're not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.” (link, link, link)

Shadaba Asad, Director of Infectious Diseases at University Medical Center Las Vegas, CNN, July 21, 2021:

“Unvaccinated people pose a huge threat to the rest of us who are vaccinated because they’re literally a breeding ground for new variants.” (link)

Anderson Cooper, MSNBC host, MSNBC, July 21, 2021:

“Even though this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated, it’s going to continue to limit what the vaccinated can do as well.” (link)

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN senior medical correspondent, CNN, July 21, 2021:

“People who aren't getting vaccinated, many of them say, this is my freedom. And it's like, well, yes, but you're treading on our freedom and you're making other people sick, and, really, you're killing other people.” (link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, White House Press Conference, July 22, 2021:

“The Delta variant is currently the greatest threat in the U.S. to our attempt to eliminate COVID-19.” (link, link)

Kay Ivey, Governor of Alabama, Reuters, July 23, 2021:

“It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks.” (link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, CNN, July 25, 2021:

“As Dr. Walensky has said many times and as I have said, it is really pandemic among the unvaccinated.” (link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, MSNBC, July 27, 2021:

“It is really unfortunate and somewhat puzzling when the data are right in front of you, and you know exactly what you need to do, and yet some people are still not getting vaccinated. That is very frustrating. … It’s as simple as black and white. You’re vaccinated, you’re safe. You’re unvaccinated, you’re at risk. Simple as that.” (link)

John Avlon, CNN host, CNN, July 27, 2021:

“The antimaskers turned antivaxers are not just putting their own lives at risk. If that was the case, we could just watch them compete for a place in the Darwin Awards.” (link)

Michael Saag, Professor of medicine and infectious diseases expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, The Guardian, July 27, 2021:

“Unvaccinated people are basically the cannon fodder of the virus. The virus needs people to infect in order to replicate and the more people it has that are vulnerable or susceptible to infection, the more likely it will mutate.” (link)

Michael Steele, Former RNC Chairman, MSNBC, July 28, 2021:

“The unvaccinated are basically beating their breasts running around saying, ‘We don’t care. We’re living free.’” (link)

Erin Burnett, CNN Host, CNN, July 28, 2021:

President Biden today repeats his line that the country is in a pandemic of the unvaccinated and yet again, the policy, the restrictions apply to everyone and when you ask people to mask up, generally speaking, the vaccinated are the people who sort of respond to those mandates too, right? So you're basically punishing the vaccinated for the sins of the unvaccinated. If everyone were vaccinated, we wouldn't have this issue. What message does this send? (link)

David Frum, CNN Host, CNN, July 28, 2021:

“This was always a pandemic of the unvaccinated. From the beginning it was a pandemic of the unvaccinated. At the beginning, we were all unvaccinated because we had no choice because the vaccine hadn't been invented yet. And then the vaccine had been invented but it was difficult to get. Now the vaccine is everywhere. So I would say this is not a pandemic of the unvaccinated. This is a pandemic of the willfully unvaccinated, the anti-socially unvaccinated. So it's not some, I think we have to stop talking about this as if this is some tragic thing that has befallen you that you are unvaccinated. If you are unvaccinated, you are choosing to expose your fellow citizens of your neighborhood, your country, your planet to harm. Now, maybe you're doing it because you're irrationally anxious. Maybe you're doing it because you're disconnected or disorganized. Maybe you have some sympathetic psychological reasons. But maybe you're just being anti-social that many of the people are unvaccinated. They invoke other in very insulting ways to say they're being discriminated against. Look, in this country, race is a protected category. You can't be discriminated against. Sex is a protected category. Sexual orientation is a protected category. Being an anti-social jerk is not a protected category.” (link)

President Joe Biden, Remarks by President Biden Laying Out the Next Steps in Our Effort to Get More Americans Vaccinated and Combat the Spread of the Delta Variant, July 29, 2021:

• “What is happening in America right now is a pandemic — a pandemic of the unvaccinated.  Let me say that again: It’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

• “Your decision to be unvaccinated impacts someone else. Unvaccinated people spread the virus. They get sick and fill up our hospitals. And that means if someone else has a heart attack or breaks a hip, there may not be a hospital bed for them. If you’re unvaccinated, you put your doctor and nurses at risk.”

John Berman, CNN Host, CNN, July 29, 2021:

“This is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated. It is now a pandemic of choice. The choice not to get vaccinated. And it's a choice that's having a profound impact, a bad one, on the rest of us.” (link, link)

Don Lemon, CNN Host, CNN, July 29, 2021:

“We could have had this under control. We were well on our way, and the only people that you can blame, the only people you can blame--this isn't shaming--this is the truth--maybe they should be ashamed--are the unvaccinated. The unvaccinated people have put us in the position that we're in now.” (link, link)

Leana Wen, Former Baltimore Health Commissioner, Democracy Now, July 29, 2021:

“Frankly, we know that we cannot trust the unvaccinated.” (link)

Arthur Caplan, Director of Medical Ethics at NYU, MSNBC, July 29, 2021:

“We have been worrying too much about the rights of the unvaccinated. … It’s gotta be vaccinate, frequent testing, masking, or you’re going to lose a lot of your job opportunities, and you’re going to lose a lot of freedom to go wherever you want.” (link)

Arthur Caplan, Director of Medical Ethics at NYU, CNN, July 29, 2021:

“It's the unvaccinated who are the threat, who are going to make us close our schools, lose our jobs again, shut down the economy. The unvaccinated have rights, but they're limited when they hurt or harm others.” (link)

Anderson Cooper, CNN Host, CNN to Bill Gates, August 4, 2021:

“Is that something you support, or do you think the state governments or federal government should mandate if you want to get on an airplane you should be vaccinated, if you want to get social security, you need to be vaccinated, you need to get whatever benefits they give, you need to be vaccinated? Is that something the U.S. can and should do?” (link)

Former Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, August 5, 2021:

“When you don’t get vaccinated, you’re endangering yourself, you’re endangering those around you, and it’s life-threatening. … It’s as if you’re walking around with a machine gun firing Delta variants at people.” (link)

Trish Zornio, columnist, Colorado Newsline, August 11, 2021:

“As controversial as it may be, we should deprioritize the eligible unvaccinated patients during medical triage. It’s a free country, and you can absolutely choose not to get the vaccine. But choices have consequences.” (link)

CBS/YouGov Poll, CBS, August 15, 2021:

“Views about unvaccinated among those fully vaccinated
Putting people like me at risk: 59%
Being misled by bad information: 57%
Make me upset or angry: 47%
Respect their decision: 27%” (link)

Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution, Newsweek, August 17, 2021:

“I have adopted a personal policy of discrimination against the unvaccinated.” (link)

Jeffrey Zients, 31st White House Chief of Staff, Press Briefing, August 18, 2021:

“This remains a pandemic of the unvaccinated. We know getting more people vaccinated is the best way to end this pandemic.” (link)

August 23, 2021: Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine officially approved by FDA (link)

Joy Reid, MSNBC host, MSNBC, August 23, 2021:

“The antivaxers—they seem to have a thing for death and home remedies.” (link, link)

Jonathan Capehart, The Sunday Show MSNBC host, MSNBC, August 29, 2021:

• “The others you infected will blame you. Your friends, your community, anyone you came into contact with will blame you. As will the rest of us, who have done the right thing by getting vaccinated.” (link)

• “And don’t get me started on the lunatics who won’t take any of the COVID vaccines, but are more than willing to pump themselves full of a livestock dewormer.” (link)

Stephen Colbert, The Late Show, CBS, September 1, 2021:

“The unvaccinated: a group that includes children and people acting like children. And the rest of us are starting to get pissed off. In a new CBS/YouGov/MeTarzan poll, among Californians who’ve gotten their shots, 59% say the unvaccinated are putting people like me at risk, while 47% say the unvaccinated make me upset or angry. Upset or angry? Why choose? Those are two great flavors that go great together.” (link)

Jeffrey Zients, 31st White House Chief of Staff, Press Briefing, September 2, 2021:

“We know more vaccinations are the way to end the pandemic, and that’s exactly what we continue to see: more vaccinations.”

Ruth Marcus, columnist, Associated Editor of the Washington Post, Washington Post, September 3, 2021:

“Doctors should be allowed to give priority to vaccinated patients. … This conflicts radically with accepted medical ethics, I recognize. … Doctors are healers, not judges. But…” (link)

Howard Stern, Host, The Howard Stern Show, September 7, 2021:

• "When are we going to stop putting up with the idiots in this country and just say, you know, it’s mandatory to get vaccinated? Fuck them, fuck their freedom.”

• “When are we going to stop putting up with the idiots in the country and say, you know, it’s time for you to get vaccinated?”

• “I’m really of mind to say, ‘Look, if you didn’t get vaccinated [and] you got covid, you don’t get into a hospital.”

• “It was like day after day, they were all dying and then their dying words are 'I wish I had been more into the vaccine. I wish I had taken it'... Go fuck yourself. You had the cure and you wouldn't take it. You had the cure and you wouldn’t take it.”

• “[They are] nutjobs and imbeciles.” (link, link)

Jimmy Kimmel, ABC Host, Jimmy Kimmel Live, September 8, 2021:

“Dr. Fauci said if hospitals get any more crowded, they're going to have to make some very tough choices about who gets an ICU bed. That choice doesn't seem so tough to me. Vaccinated person having a heart attack? Yes, come right on in. We'll take care of you. Unvaccinated guy who gobbled horse goo? Rest in peace, wheezy.” (link)

President Biden, Televised Remarks on Fighting the COVID-⁠19 Pandemic, September 9, 2021:

• “This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. And it’s caused by the fact that…we still have nearly 80 million Americans who have failed to get the shot.”

• “The vast majority of Americans are doing the right thing. Nearly three quarters of the eligible have gotten at least one shot, but one quarter has not gotten any….That 25 percent can cause a lot of damage — and they are.”

• “The unvaccinated overcrowd our hospitals, are overrunning the emergency rooms and intensive care units, leaving no room for someone with a heart attack, or pancreitis [pancreatitis], or cancer.”

• “A distinct minority of Americans –supported by a distinct minority of elected officials — are keeping us from turning the corner. These pandemic politics, as I refer to, are making people sick, causing unvaccinated people to die.”

• “[The COVID-19 vaccine] is not about freedom or personal choice.”

• “As your President, I’m announcing tonight a new plan to require more Americans to be vaccinated, to combat those blocking public health.”

• “The bottom line: We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers.”

• “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.”

• “For the vast majority of you who have gotten vaccinated, I understand your anger at those who haven’t gotten vaccinated.” (link)

Leana Wen, Former Baltimore Health Commissioner, CNN, September 9, 2021:

• “We need to start looking at the choice to remain unvaccinated the same as we look at driving while intoxicated. … You have the option to not get vaccinated if you want. But then you can't go out in public.” (link)

• “There are privileges associated with being an American. That if you wish to have these privileges, you need to get vaccinated. Travel, and having the right to travel in our state, it’s not a constitutional right as far as I know to board a plane.” (link)

Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, La semaine des 4 Julie, September 16, 2021:

“Yes, we will get out of this pandemic by vaccination. We all know people who are a little bit hesitant. We will continue to try and convince them, but there are also people who are fiercely against vaccination. They are extremists who don’t believe in science, they’re often misogynists, also often racists. It’s a small group that muscles in, and we have to make a choice in terms of leaders, in terms of the country. Do we tolerate these people?” (link)

Ronald W. Pies, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at SUNY, Psychiatric Times, October 5, 2021:

The situation has been rightly characterized as “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” (link)

Chris Cuomo, CNN host, CNN, October 6, 2021:

“You know what our biggest enemy is in America? Our fellow [unvaccinated] Americans." (link, link)

President Joe Biden, Remarks by President Biden on the Importance of COVID-⁠19 Vaccine Requirements, October 7, 2021:

“We’re making sure healthcare workers are vaccinated, because if you seek care at a healthcare facility, you should have the certainty that the pro- — the people providing that care are protected from COVID and cannot spread it to you.” (link)

Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director, CNBC, October 8, 2021:

“[Ending the pandemic] depends on human behavior. We have a lot of the science right now. We have the vaccines. And what we can’t really predict is human behavior. And human behavior in this pandemic really hasn’t served us very well. We are battling with one another and are not battling with the common foe, which is the virus itself. … The real challenge is that there are… pockets of places that have very little protection. … So really what your question depends on is how well we coalesce together as a humanity and a community to do the things that we need to do in those communities to get ourselves protected.” (link)

Arthur Caplan, Director of Medical Ethics at NYU, Medscape, October 13, 2021:

“It’s okay for docs to refuse to treat unvaccinated patients.” (link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, U.S. Senate Committee, November 4, 2021:

“When you think about pandemics, you’re in the pandemic phase and then you have a deceleration phase, then you have a control phase, then hopefully you’ll have elimination and maybe eradication. What we hope to get it at is such a low level that even though it isn’t completely eliminated, it doesn’t have a major impact on public health or on the way we run our lives. So, if we get more people vaccinated globally and more people vaccinated now, hopefully within a reasonable period of time we will get to that point where it might occasionally be up and down in the background but it won’t dominate us the way it’s doing right now.” (link)

Gene Simmons, Frontman of Kiss, Talkshoplive, November 11, 2021:

“If you're willing to walk among us unvaccinated, you are an enemy.” (link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, NYT: The Daily, November 12, 2021:

“If you have a population of individuals who are vulnerable to infection, with no protection from a vaccine, you give the virus ample opportunity to circulate, to infect even through breakthrough infections vaccinated people. And you give it the opportunity to mutate to possibly develop into a new problematic variant.” (link)

Andrew D. McRae and Andreas Laupacis, Editorial Fellow and Senior Deputy Editor, Canadian Medical Association Journal, November 29, 2021:

“SARS-CoV-2 vaccination should be required to practise medicine in Canada.” (link)

Jim Cramer, Mad Money Host, CNBC, November 30, 2021:

• “A vocal antivax minority is always grabbing the mic. This charade must end. We have immunocompromised people who are incubators for every variant to come walking around unvaccinated? That’s psychotic.”

• “It’s time to admit that we have to go to war against COVID. Require vaccination universally. Have the military run it.”

• “If you are unvaccinated… you need to help in the war effort by staying at home until we beat this thing.”

Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director, MSNBC, December 4, 2021:

“We have seen now that this is likely to become an endemic disease here in the United States and really around the world. We have many diseases that are endemic, influenza being one of them, that cause us minor challenges year after year that we can handle and tackle, and that may very well be what happens with covid.” (link)

Charles Blow, Opinion Columnist, New York Times, December 8, 2021:

• “There was a point, earlier on in the pandemic, when vaccines were still scarce, when I tried to be tolerant with the holdouts, tried not to shame them, tried not to be angry with them, tried to allow them time to educate themselves about the benefits of getting vaccinated. But that time has long since passed for me.”

• “This virus is deadly and unrelenting. The only way out of this situation, for our country and the world, is through the vaccines. We must dramatically shrink the number of people vulnerable to the virus — or else we risk allowing our population to act as a petri dish for the growth of variants.”

• “The unvaccinated don’t leave only themselves vulnerable to the virus; they make everyone more vulnerable.”

• “We now have to consider the very real possibility that the virus will not be eradicated, but will become endemic. The journal Nature put this more directly in February: “The coronavirus is here to stay.” In a survey of more than 100 immunologists, researchers and virologists, the journal found that almost 90 percent thought that the coronavirus would become endemic. As Nature put it at the time, ‘it will continue to circulate in pockets of the global population for years to come.’ Even if eradication is all but impossible, it is possible to control the virus and mitigate its spread, if more people are vaccinated.”

• “All others have a choice to either be part of the solution or part of the problem. The unvaccinated are choosing to be part of the problem.” (link)

David Frum, Senior Editor at The Atlantic, Twitter, December 12, 2021:

“Let hospitals quietly triage emergency care to serve the unvaccinated last.” (link)

Joe Biden, U.S. President, WHOTV7, December 14, 2021:

“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. The unvaccinated. Not the vaccinated, the unvaccinated. That’s the problem. Everybody talks about freedom and not to have a shot or have a test. Well guess what? How about patriotism? How about making sure that you’re vaccinated, so you do not spread the disease to anyone else." (link)

Nanette Cocero, global president of Pfizer Vaccines, Investor Call, December 17, 2021:

“We believe Covid will transition to an endemic state, potentially by 2024.” (link)

Anthony Fauci, NIH’s NIAID Director, MSNBC, December 21, 2020:

MENENDEZ: If someone in your family isn’t vaccinated, should you ask them not to show up [for the holidays]?

FAUCI: Yes, I would do that. I mean, I think we’re dealing with a serious enough situation right now that, if there’s an unvaccinated person, I would say, I’m very sorry, but not this time, maybe another time when this is all over. (link)

Tony Blair, former UK Prime Minister, Times Radio, December 22, 2021:

“Frankly, if you’re not vaccinated at the moment and you’re eligible and you’ve got no health reason for not being vaccinated, you’re not just irresponsible, I mean you’re an idiot.” (link)

Editorial Staff at Wednesday Journal, Wednesday Journal, January 4, 2022:

“We’re all in favor of requiring citizens to provide proof of full vaccination — that’s three shots if you’re eligible — before they stroll into a restaurant, movie theater, fitness center, music venue. Extend it to airplanes, too. This should have been implemented months back.

The concept is simple. COVID kills people. We have a powerful tool in vaccines that does a remarkable job of preventing serious illness or death from COVID and its variants. Rational people have taken this proactive, life-affirming step. They deserve to be protected by government, by business, by churches, by restaurants, theaters, gyms and nightclubs from an irrational minority of people who have turned a worldwide pandemic into some sort of political proving ground for the deranged.

Segregating those people from the rest of us so that we can move toward some changed sense of normal life — breakfast at Louie’s, lunch at George’s, dinner at Lou Malnati’s — makes perfect sense. We have no second thoughts on this. We have no sympathy for the unvaccinated. Actually we have contempt for them and we don’t want them sitting near us coughing on our popcorn at the Lake Theatre.” (link)

President Joe Biden, CNN, January 4, 2022:

• “This continues to be a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

• “Unvaccinated kids are at risk, yet the vaccinated are going to have a way to protect them.  Get vaccinated.  If you’re vaccinated, get boosted.” (link, link)

Emmanuel Macron, French President, Le Parisien interview, January 4, 2022:

• “I am not about pissing off the French people. But as for the non-vaccinated, I really want to piss them off. And we will continue to do this, to the end. This is the strategy.”

• “In a democracy, the worst enemies are lies and stupidity. We are putting pressure on the unvaccinated by limiting, as much as possible, their access to activities in social life.”

• “When my freedoms threaten those of others, I become someone irresponsible. Someone irresponsible is not a citizen.” (link)

Arthur Caplan, Director of Medical Ethics at NYU, CNN, January 5, 2022:

“I don’t want to reject those who still haven’t done the right thing. I will condemn them. I will shame them. I will blame them. … We cannot write them off. We can penalize them more. We can say, ‘you’re going to have to pay more on your medical bill if you’re unvaccinated. You can’t get life insurance or disability insurance at affordable rates if you aren’t vaccinated.’” (link, link)

Jacqui Heinrich, Reporter, Press Briefing, January 5, 2022:

“President yesterday said this continues to be a pandemic of the unvaccinated.  Isn’t it also fair to say that it’s still also a pandemic of the vaccinated, given the breakthrough cases that we’ve been seeing?” (link)

“Daniel”, Reporter, Press Briefing, January 5, 2022:

“Why hasn’t the President focused more on kind of scolding the unvaccinated?” (link, link)

Rodrigo Duterte, President of the Philippines, Televised Address, January 6, 2022:

“Because it is a national emergency, it is my position that we can restrain [the unvaccinated].”

“I am now giving orders to the village chiefs to look for persons who are not vaccinated and just request them or order them, if you may, to stay put.”

“If he refuses and goes out of the house and goes around in the community or maybe everywhere, he can be restrained. If he refuses, then the official is empowered to arrest the recalcitrant persons.”

“If you don't get a jab you put everybody in jeopardy.” (link)

Karl Lauterbach, German Minister of Health, Corona summit of the federal and state governments, January 7, 2022:

“In Germany, it's not enough just to get on the nerves of the unvaccinated, you have to do more.” (link)

Toronto Star Editorial Board, Toronto Star, January 9, 2022:

• “Those refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19 are doing great harm to the majority of responsible citizens, to Canada’s health-care system, to the overburdened men and women who work in it. It is their irresponsibility that is largely to blame for the restraints under which Canadians are currently required to live. It is no surprise, then, and largely to be applauded, that exasperated jurisdictions from Quebec to countries in Europe have opted to raise the cost of demonstrably anti-social behaviour.”

• “Some of those frustrated with the intransigence of the anti-vaxx minority propose cutting them off from all social services. That would be too extreme. But there’s no human right to the pleasures of life — to entertainment, libations, recreational drugs — and requiring vaccination as the price of admission is entirely reasonable.”

• “The majority of people who “did the right thing” and got vaccinated are effectively being held hostage to the selfishness of the few. At this point it’s entirely reasonable to raise the price of irresponsibility, and make life more difficult for those who won’t get their shots. Ontario and other provinces should follow Quebec’s example and turn the screws further on the unvaxxed.” (link)

Michael Hiltzik, LA Times columnist, LA Times, January 10, 2022:

• “Mocking anti-vaxxers' COVID deaths is ghoulish, yes - but necessary.”

• “Those who have deliberately flouted sober medical advice by refusing a vaccine known to reduce the risk of serious disease from the virus, including the risk to others, and end up in the hospital or the grave can be viewed as receiving their just deserts.”

• “It may be not a little ghoulish to celebrate or exult in the deaths of vaccine opponents. And it may be proper to express sympathy and solicitude to those they leave behind. But mockery is not necessarily the wrong reaction to those who publicly mocked anti-COVID measures and encouraged others to follow suit, before they perished of the disease the dangers of which they belittled. Nor is it wrong to deny them our sympathy and solicitude, or to make sure it’s known when their deaths are marked that they had stood fast against measures that might have protected themselves and others from the fate they succumbed to. There may be no other way to make sure that the lessons of these teachable moments are heard.” (link)

Aaron Blake, Staff Writer, Washington Post, January 11, 2022:

“Calling it a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” is rather mild compared to how some other countries’ leaders are talking about the culpability of those who refuse the jabs.” (link).

Don Lemon, CNN Host, CNN, January 18, 2022:

“We have to start doing things for the greater good of society and not for idiots who think that they can do their own research, or that they are above the law and they can break the rules.” (link)

Albert Ko, chair of the department of epidemiology and microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, Washington Post, January 20, 2022:

“This is not a situation where you have a flip of the switch, like, we’re pandemic one day and then we switch to endemic. This is a gradual process and this is the process that we’re undergoing now.” (link)

Ryan Cooper, National Correspondent, The Week, January 20, 2022:

• “The president is neither coercing vaccine refusers to do the right thing nor channeling the anger of the vaccinated.”

• “The majority of Americans who have done everything right are still being harmed by the willful irresponsibility of the unvaccinated minority.”

• “Though he says there's "no excuse for anyone being unvaccinated," Biden is neither coercing vaccine refusers into doing the right thing nor channeling the anger of the vaccinated. Stewing resentment is the result.”

• “Even for those of us who haven't lost lives or jobs or health care, life still isn't back to normal because the unvaccinated have functionally kept the pandemic going. Schools are still closing; many are still working from home; we're still not going to restaurants and throwing parties and visiting family the way we'd like. And it didn't have to be this way. As Yasmeen Serhan writes at The Atlantic, European leaders are also facing a restive population sick and tired of the pandemic. But unlike Biden, they're channeling the frustration of the vaccinated majority by imposing more and more punishing burdens on the unvaccinated. The European Union has a vaccine passport system, and from Portugal to Austria, steadily more and more locations are being closed off to vaccine refusers. French President Emanuel Macron recently said outright he wants to "piss off" the stragglers. Frankly, I do too.”

• “The Washington Post recently published a profile of an Italian cellist who refuses to get vaccinated, apparently because Facebook memes turned his brain to soup, and as a result is barely able to leave his house. By its own lights, the story a thoughtful piece intended to raise questions about state power and the social contract, but reading it I felt nothing but vindictive glee. Here's a stubborn, self-deluded jerk who refuses to get a vaccine that would cost him nothing, would let him go back to a mostly-normal life, would protect both him and others from a deadly virus, and is safer than aspirin — and so he's been ostracized from society? Good.”

• “I also greatly enjoyed the spectacle of the Australian government deporting tennis star Novak Djokovic after he lied about his vaccination status so he could compete in the Australian Open. A rich, comically deranged, woo woo jerk who thought he could do whatever he wanted without following the rules to protect Australian society — and he actually got punished for it? Hilarious.”

• “And I'm not the only one feeling this way. Witness the large majority of Americans who support Biden's vaccine mandates or would ban unvaccinated people from airlines, public events, or offices. Biden could be giving vent to this rage, if nothing else.”

• “The value in these efforts would extend beyond their effect on vaccination, transmission, and death rates. They would also demonstrate to that angry majority that the government is doing something, that Biden understands their exhaustion and fury with an anti-social mindset so extreme it endangers the lives of adherents and the responsible among us alike.” (link)

CHEK Media, January 22, 2022:

“Should the government should charge people without a medical exemption, who refuse to get vaccinated a financial penalty?” (link)

Victoria Premier Dan Andrews, January 30, 2022:

“At the moment two doses are protecting the vast majority of people from serious illness, but it’s only with three doses that you’ll be prevented, not just from serious illness but from getting this virus, this Omicron variant, and therefore giving it to others.” (link, link)

Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director, The Crimson, May 5, 2022:

"I like to consider an endemic when we are in a steady state. We still have rising cases, so I am not ready to call it that but I do think this is a virus we are going to have to learn to live with." (link)

Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director, WSJ: The Journal Podcast, May 17, 2022:

“I think when a disease is endemic, and every season some proportion of Americans get the upper respiratory infections of the season, and coronavirus may be among them. Could we be in that kind of state several years from now? We could. In which case then perhaps everybody would get COVID. I don't think we're quite there yet.” (link)

July 17 and 18, 2022: Vaccine rollout among children 6 months to 5 years of age

Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director, The Crimson, October 13, 2023:

“Everybody has a different risk assessment, right? Their own personal risk, their willingness to take risk. I think we have to individualize it. People know what they need to do if they want to protect themselves. Obviously, that means getting vaccinated. Obviously, if you want to take an extra measure, it’ll be testing if you are going to visit a loved one who might be at risk — certainly testing if you have systems. And then wearing a mask. All of those things are on the menu; we know those things are on the menu. This is about risk and about your own personal risk preferences.” (link)