The fact-check was published after a recent EU Parliamentary hearing last week during which a Pfizer executive admitted that the vaccine maker did not know if the COVID-19 injection could prevent transmission before going to market. The shot’s ability to prevent transmission, which both Pfizer and government authorities assured it would, became the basis for the forced vaccinations that followed. 

Reuters’ main defense is that since Pfizer was not required by health regulators to test the vaccine’s effect on transmissibility, Pfizer did no wrong. Then the article says that in 2020, before the vaccine went to market and vaccine mandates were implemented, “researchers and regulators made clear in public statements that the vaccines’ effect on virus transmission remained unknown (here).” 

Reuters fails to cite any of the many subsequent public statements by Pfizer, health authorities and other public figures promising the vaccine would “stop the spread,” including one from CDC Director Rochelle Walensky that it was evident in the clinical trials. 

Bill Gates, 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.” 

Bill Gates, January 28, 2021: “Everyone who takes the vaccine is not just protecting themselves but is reducing transmission to other people and allowing society to get back to normal.” 

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, March 29, 2021: “We can kind of almost see the end where we’re vaccinating so very fast. Our data from the CDC today suggests, you know, that 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.” 

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, 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.” 

UCSF infectious disease expert Dr. Monica Gandhi, March 30, 2021: “Essentially vaccines block you from getting and giving the virus.” 

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, 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%!” 

White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr Anthony Fauci, May 16, 2021: “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. And that’s when you get a point that you have a markedly diminished rate of infection in the community.” 

White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr Anthony Fauci, 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” 

White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr Anthony Fauci, June 2, 2021: “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.” 

Joe Biden, July 21, 2021: “You’re ok, you’re not gonna get COVID if you have these vaccinations.” 

Former Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, August 5, 2021: “If you don’t get vaccinated – it’s like walking around with a machine gun and shooting delta viruses at everyone.” 

Victoria Premier Dan Andrews, January 30 2022: “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.”