Vaccines, masks, distancing and credibility: An urgent warning for pandemic management

The majority of a weary population has welcomed these new vaccines as lights at the end of a long dark tunnel, representing the hope that we can soon reopen businesses, classrooms, and auditoriums. [...]far, the vaccines being used in the West appear to have only rare physical side effects (e.g., anaphylaxis), but they will have dangerous behavioral side effects if they prematurely create the expectations that vaccine recipients are now safe, that the restrictions on our lives and economies can be lifted, and that preventive public health practices such as distancing, masks, testing, and contact tracing can be abandoned. The immune response following SARS-CoV-2 infection targets other viral proteins in addition to the spike protein, suggesting that the immune system’s ability to protect against variants with single or few mutations in the spike protein is unlikely to be compromised. [...]if reinfection with a SARS-CoV-2 variant following natural infection is possible, it follows that infection with a SARS-CoV-2 variant following immunization against the spike protein alone (generating a narrower immune response) is also possible. The media perform an invaluable service when doing this, but there are inherent risks: reporters rarely recognize new data or understand its implications, they may not fully understand or adequately explain how new data affects previously reported conclusions and, even when they do, they may not reach their original audience again to revise those conclusions. [...]physicians and scientists have a duty to present the most important message to the news media when we have credibility and their attention.