Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House Chief Medical Adviser, acknowledged in a July 2022 interview that COVID-19 vaccines do not “protect overly well” against infection, primarily due to the high transmissibility of the virus. Despite this, he emphasized that the vaccines “protect quite well” against severe disease, hospitalization, and death. Fauci stated that his own vaccination and booster doses likely contributed to his mild course of illness when he tested positive for COVID-19, reinforcing the message that unvaccinated individuals would likely experience a more severe outcome. This admission came amid rising cases driven by new variants like BA.4 and BA.5, and Fauci urged continued use of boosters, indoor masking, and therapies to mitigate risks.
One of the things that’s clear from the data [is] that even though vaccines – because of the high degree of transmissibility of this virus – don’t protect overly well, as it were, against infection, they protect quite well against severe disease leading to hospitalization and death. And I believe that’s the reason, Neil, why at my age, being vaccinated and boosted, even though it didn’t protect me against infection, I feel confident that it made a major role in protecting me from progressing to severe disease. And that’s very likely why I had a relatively mild course. So my message to people who seem confused because people who are vaccinated get infected – the answer is if you weren’t vaccinated, the likelihood [is] you would have had [a] more severe course than you did have when you were vaccinated.