• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

2

Elon Musk on MacKenzie Scott giving away $26 billion of her fortune: 'Sadly,' it makes the world a worse place

3

Philanthropy leader at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge says children of billionaires are pushing them to give their wealth away faster

1

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

2

Elon Musk on MacKenzie Scott giving away $26 billion of her fortune: 'Sadly,' it makes the world a worse place

3

Philanthropy leader at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge says children of billionaires are pushing them to give their wealth away faster
HealthCoronavirus

Scientists protest CDC Director’s upbeat vaccine comments—but caution has its costs, too

By
David Z. Morris
David Z. Morris
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
David Z. Morris
David Z. Morris
Down Arrow Button Icon
April 2, 2021, 12:07 PM ET
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Some scientists are objecting to recent statements by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky that they say overstated the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. The debate highlights a variety of tensions at the heart of the CDC’s mission, above all the challenge of presenting complex, even contradictory science in ways that are simultaneously accurate, and straightforward enough for the public.

Walensky’s comments came early this week in a conversation with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, which Maddow introduced by saying that “Dr. Walensky is a scientist. She’s not prone to hyperbole. She sticks to the facts and the data.”

Critics argue Walensky didn’t live up to that introduction. They’ve honed in on statements made just moments into the interview:

“We can kind of almost see the end,” Walensky said. “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.”

The idea that vaccinated people “don’t get sick” is, on its face, an overstatement. “It’s much harder for vaccinated people to get infected, but don’t think for one second that they cannot get infected,” vaccine researcher Paul Duprex told the New York Times. The vaccines being administered in the U.S. are highly protective against COVID-19, but there is still a chance of infection.

A CDC spokesperson clarified in a statement to the Times that “Dr. Walensky spoke broadly during this interview … It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get COVID-19.”

But given that caveat, Walensky’s statement is largely accurate: vaccinated people are 100% protected from severe cases of COVID-19, and from the risk of death. This has been well-established for months.

Critics cited by the Times may also have overlooked the context for Walensky’s comments. As Maddow made crystal clear in her introduction to the segment, the most important finding of the recent CDC study was that vaccinated people suffer an extremely low rate of asymptomatic infections. This may be bigger news than the general public realizes.

“It means instead of the virus being able to hop from person to person to person to person, spreading and spreading, sickening some of them but not all of them, and the ones it does’t sicken don’t know they have it and they give it to more people,” Maddow explained, “Potentially mutating and becoming more virulent and drug resistant along the way, now we know that the vaccines work well enough that the virus stops with every vaccinated person.”

When Walensky said vaccinated people “don’t carry the virus,” she was likely referring, somewhat loosely, to this low incidence of asymptomatic infections. To translate it into the level of precision her critics would prefer, vaccinated people “have a very low chance of carrying the virus without showing symptoms of COVID-19.”

The big, major point, as Maddow put it, is simple: “We can end this thing.” Vaccinations not only prevent illness and death, they give the virus nowhere to hide. With enough vaccinations, we now know that COVID-19 can be truly controlled, even eradicated—like smallpox, yellow fever, and polio before it.

Critics like health policy expert Dr. Peter Bach argue that “This opens the door to the skeptics who think the government is sugarcoating the science,” as he told the Times. But it’s not clear that more cautious communication increases trust in health authorities, either. There’s evidence that the most accurate, detailed communication about risks can actually increase people’s doubts about the vaccine by giving the impression that the vaccine is less effective than it actually is.

That double-bind may not have an easy solution.

“Public health experts generally rely on scientific evidence to make recommendations to the public, and we have found ourselves in a challenging spot with the COVID-19 pandemic,” Dr. Janet Baseman, an epidemiologist with the University of Washington, told Fortune. “It is a new virus and so little evidence has been available to us at the time that we needed it for making timely recommendations.”

In other words, Walensky may have painted the good news with a slightly overbroad brush.

But make no mistake: The news is good. It is very, very good.

Now go get that shot.

About the Author
By David Z. Morris
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Health

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Health

kean
PoliticsCongress
Tom Kean discloses depression diagnosis behind 4-month absence from Congress: ‘until you experience it yourself, it is difficult to fully understand’
By Mike Catalini, Joey Cappelletti and The Associated PressJune 30, 2026
13 hours ago
‘Cop on your wrist’: Wearables offer tons of data, but people are still going to sleep to Netflix and TikTok
HealthBrainstorm Tech
‘Cop on your wrist’: Wearables offer tons of data, but people are still going to sleep to Netflix and TikTok
By Amanda GerutJune 29, 2026
2 days ago
usa
EnvironmentHeat
Long and dangerous heat wave to roast America from Dallas to New York through July 4th holiday
By Marc Levy and The Associated PressJune 29, 2026
2 days ago
France suffers 1,000 additional deaths in just the past week amid record heat wave—and 85% involved people aged 65 and above
EuropeWeather and forecasting
France suffers 1,000 additional deaths in just the past week amid record heat wave—and 85% involved people aged 65 and above
By Kirsten Grieshaber, John Leicester and The Associated PressJune 28, 2026
3 days ago
Peter Rahal speaks on stage in front of a black and purple background.
RetailFood and drink
David Protein CEO says ‘diet trends are over’ because of GLP-1s: ‘What’s next is really hard to predict’
By Sasha RogelbergJune 28, 2026
3 days ago
What 3 million Americans quitting Obamacare shows: Republicans couldn’t repeal it, so they made it unaffordable
HealthHealth Insurance
What 3 million Americans quitting Obamacare shows: Republicans couldn’t repeal it, so they made it unaffordable
By Ali Swenson and The Associated PressJune 27, 2026
3 days ago

Most Popular

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year
Success
MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year
By Sydney LakeJune 25, 2026
6 days ago
Elon Musk on MacKenzie Scott giving away $26 billion of her fortune: 'Sadly,' it makes the world a worse place
Success
Elon Musk on MacKenzie Scott giving away $26 billion of her fortune: 'Sadly,' it makes the world a worse place
By Sydney LakeJune 29, 2026
2 days ago
Philanthropy leader at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge says children of billionaires are pushing them to give their wealth away faster
Success
Philanthropy leader at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge says children of billionaires are pushing them to give their wealth away faster
By Preston ForeJune 27, 2026
4 days ago
'Humanity has chosen to become idiots': This Brown professor switched to take-home exams after a mass shooting and discovered mass cheating
AI
'Humanity has chosen to become idiots': This Brown professor switched to take-home exams after a mass shooting and discovered mass cheating
By Catherina GioinoJune 29, 2026
1 day ago
The retired college professor fighting a $313 trespassing ticket in Wisconsin thinks he's part of a national struggle
Environment
The retired college professor fighting a $313 trespassing ticket in Wisconsin thinks he's part of a national struggle
By Catherina GioinoJune 28, 2026
3 days ago
The U.S. Army is opening military bases to private billions — here's why that changes everything for the next 250 years
Commentary
The U.S. Army is opening military bases to private billions — here's why that changes everything for the next 250 years
By Marc AndersenJune 30, 2026
18 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.