When I first started at CDC about two months ago, I made a promise to you: I would tell you the truth, even if it was not the news we wanted to hear.  Now is one of those times when I have to share the truth and I have to hope and trust you all listen. I’m going to pause here.  I’m going to lose the script.  And I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom.  We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope, but right now I’m scared.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/29/press-briefing-by-white-house-covid-19-response-team-and-public-health-officials-21/

And we have -- we can kind of almost see the end. 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 that it`s not just in the clinical trials but it`s also in real world data.

https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-3-29-21-n1262442

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTuXDLBCGnw

See also: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/vaccines-never-prevented-transmission-covid-alex-gutentag

In the month leading up to the recommendations of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines for teens and adolescents 12 and older, CDC observed troubling data regarding the hospitalizations of adolescents with COVID-19.  More concerning were the number of adolescents admitted to the hospital who required treatment in the intensive care unit with mechanical ventilation.  Tomorrow, we will publish a report on this topic with more details in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.  And it is these findings within this publication — one that demonstrates the level of severe disease, even among youth, that are preventable, that force us to redouble our motivation to get our adolescents and young adults vaccinated. Last month, FDA authorized and CDC recommended a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19 that can be used in adolescents to prevent disease and hospitalization.  I strongly encourage parents to get their teens vaccinated, as I did mine. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYG_mfXQ6tk

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/06/03/press-briefing-by-white-house-covid-19-response-team-and-public-health-officials-40/

These cases of mild heart inflammation are overwhelmed by the benefits of getting vaccinated.

The evidence is clear: masks can help prevent the spread of COVID-19 by reducing your chance of infection by more than 80%.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full

Where could we have improved? Well I can tell you where I was when CNN said that it was 95% effective, the vaccine. So many of us wanted to be helpful. So many of us wanted to say, this is our ticket out. We're done. So I think that perhaps we had too little caution and too much optimism for things that came our way. I really do. I think all of us wanted this to be done. Nobody said 'waning' when, this vaccine is going to work. Maybe it will wear off. Nobody said that maybe it is not as potent against the next variant.

To put that in perspective, during March 2020 through April 2022, COVID-19 was among the top five leading causes of death in every age group of children under the age of 19 and the number one infectious cause of death in children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSxpDs1Tq5M

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2022/06/23/press-briefing-by-white-house-covid-19-response-team-and-public-health-officials-86/

See also: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4381627

We are simplifying our message. The message is that you need to get your fall booster vaccine, so go ahead and get it. If you're over the age of 12, if you have received the primary series, if you are more than 2 months from your last shot, you are OK to get the vaccine. So we have intentionally simplified the message so that it is very very clear.

In order to do a randomized clinical trial, you need to have equipoise in the question. And ultimately what happened is that there were so many studies that demonstrated time and time again in the height of COVID transmission that masks were working to prevent transmission that I am not sure anyone would have proposed a clinical trial because in fact there wasn't equipoise to the question anymore.

See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n7gS-oR3Vc

All the data at the time suggested that people who were vaccinated even if they got sick, couldn't transmit the virus to someone else.

https://www.youtube.com/live/LKPpxEiZe6k?feature=share&t=4931