Dr. Andrew Pavia: The vaccine wasn't perfect,

Dr. Andrew Pavia: "The vaccine wasn't perfect, it didn't prevent every infection, it didn't prevent every death, but without it, things would have been immeasurable worse and we all knew that."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal: "Tell me what the science says about the efficacy of the Covid vaccine. I think people maybe wanted to hear that it would completely protect you. I know when I got Covid before the vaccine, I got Covid after the vaccine, I was never under any illusion that it was going to be 100% effective, but that it would help prevent get contracting it and then if I did contract it that the symptoms would be less, but tell me what you know, what the science says about the efficacy?"
Dr. Andrew Pavia: "Science, as you know evolves and what we know about the vaccines and what we know about the virus and the virus itself has changed a great deal over the last 4 years.
When the vaccine was first studied, when it was a perfect match to the virus that was circulating it was 95% effective at preventing any infection. But that dropped the longer you were out from the vaccine and the more the virus changed over time.
It is still highly effective if you get the updated vaccines that are better but not perfect match for the current viruses at preventing severe disease and hospitalization. It does reduce your chances of getting infected, but it does not completely prevent it.
And I think willfully people are saying stop transmission when it doesn't stop it entirely, but it does decrease it because people are not infected cannot transmit."