It's interesting they didn't ask questions like whether people believed that the COVID vaccine prevented transmission of the virus. The number might have been even more staggering.

> COVID vaccine prevented transmission of the virus

People aren't good at subtlety and nuance, and it's quite necessary:

- Did the COVID vaccine prevent transmission of the virus? No, clearly not, because I was double vaccinated and still caught the virus and inadvertently spread the virus.

- Did the COVID vaccine reduce the probability of transmission of the virus? Probably.

- Did the COVID vaccine reduce the severity of symptoms if you were infected? Also probably.

- Was there a non-zero risk of injury due to the COVID vaccine? Definitely. In the general population, did the risk of severe illness due to COVID outweigh the risk of vaccine injury? Very likely. For specific individuals who ended up debilitated for 12 months (like my close family member), undergoing a number of tests to try to find a cause other than vaccine injury, was it worth it? Hard to say.

Edit: someone replied about vaccine injury and was flagged. In this particular case the doctor was convinced that it was Addison’s Disease and the onset was within days of, I believe her third dose. It’s an autoimmune disorder that affects the adrenal glands and results in insufficient cortisol. Except… there was nothing wrong with her adrenal glands and it went away a year later.

Huh?

1) No vaccine is 100% effective.

2) Against something that mutates quickly the vaccine will always be behind. Thus the new variants win out. (The same thing would happen in the absence of vaccines, but it would take longer.)

The idea that it could actually be stamped out was very wishful thinking. But the vaccine does have a big benefit in reducing death.