Messengers are spreading messages about an article by British scientists who allegedly demonstrated the futility of vaccination to protect against infection. We decided to check whether the content of this message is true.

Distributed the newsletter channel On Telegram, Doctors for Truth has almost 40,000 subscribers. Her also reposted actress and TV presenter Maria Shukshina (more than 230,000 subscribers). A similar post appeared in "VKontakte", "Odnoklassniki", LiveJournal, Facebook, as well as on numerous urban forums and in the comments to materials Media. The newsletter was also marked as frequently forwarded on WhatsApp. As the text says, it is based on an article by British scientists published on October 29, 2021. The main points of the newsletter are as follows:
— “the peak viral load does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. That is, both of them can be equally seriously ill with coronavirus, regardless of vaccination status. Vaccination does not protect against coronavirus disease, especially with its new strains, and a vaccinated vaccinated person (and a revaccinated patient) can get just as seriously ill as an unvaccinated patient”;
— “the only identified bonus of vaccination is, according to the authors of the article, a faster reduction in the viral load of those vaccinated, that is, they recover a little faster (slightly faster), while at the same time being exposed to post-vaccination risks (complications, etc.)”;
— Scientists speak out against forced vaccinations.

The article was actually published on October 29 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, its full text available on the magazine's website. Its title is “Exposure and viral load kinetics of SARS-CoV-2 delta strain (B.1.617.2) in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the UK: a prospective, longitudinal, cohort study.” The study was conducted from September 13, 2020 to September 15, 2021, and involved 602 volunteers, each of whom took a PCR test from the nasopharynx within 20 days after detection of the disease.

In the very first paragraph, the authors state that they only studied disease “in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals with mild delta strain infection in the community.” The article also noted that those whose PCR test after contact with infected people turned out to be positive were selected for the study. From these two statements it follows that the study did not include people with degrees other than mild, and the scientists also did not include in the sample those who had contact with the infected person and did not get sick (whether vaccinated or not). Already at this point, it is not clear where the passages in the Russian-language newsletter about different degrees of severity and equally effective transmission of the virus came from. But let's look at each statement separately.

“The peak viral load does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated people,” they write in the newsletter. “Fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral loads similar to unvaccinated individuals and can effectively transmit infection in the home, including to fully vaccinated contacts,” the article writes. However, prefacing this with another sentence: “Vaccination reduces the risk of infection with the delta variant and accelerates the elimination of the virus.” What are the key differences between these statements? Firstly, scientists talk about a similar peak viral load only in cases breakthrough infections, not just any infections. Breakthrough are called those few cases when fully vaccinated people still get sick (the reason for this Maybe be a decrease in immunity some time after vaccination, the spread of a new variant, or prolonged contact with someone who sheds large quantities of the virus). That is, as correctly as possible, but at the same time accessible, the scientists’ thesis can be formulated as follows: “Vaccines work and protect well against infections. However, there are a few exceptions. If a vaccinated person does become infected, then the highest concentration of the virus that he will release during illness is almost the same as if an unvaccinated person was sick.”

It is worth noting that the determination of the virus concentration in this study was carried out using the PCR method, and today scientists not proven direct relationship between the concentration of the virus in the nasopharynx and the severity of the disease. However, it is precisely during periods of high load that a person is most contagious. So the translation into simple language should be supplemented with one more phrase: “At the time when a vaccinated patient has a peak viral load, he infects others as effectively as an unvaccinated patient with the same peak viral load.”

The second part of this statement in the newsletter states that “both of them (vaccinated and unvaccinated – editor’s note) can get equally severely ill from coronavirus, regardless of vaccination status.” However, this thesis is simply not present in the study; the severity of the disease in vaccinated and unvaccinated people was not compared at all. The words from the newsletter that “vaccination does not save you from coronavirus” are not confirmed in the article at all. Moreover, scientists have the opposite opinion, reporting that “vaccination reduces the risk of infection with the delta variant.”

Let's move on to the second thesis: “The only identified bonus of vaccination is, according to the authors of the article, a faster reduction in the viral load of those vaccinated, that is, they recover a little faster (slightly faster), while at the same time being exposed to post-vaccination risks (complications, etc.).” As can be seen from the previous paragraph, scientists believe that a faster reduction in viral load is by no means the only bonus, because they say that vaccination reduces the risk of infection. But there is not a word about post-vaccination risks and complications in the scientists’ article. The authors of the newsletter simply added this statement on their own.

Finally, the third thesis is that the authors of the article are against forced vaccination. What is it really? The article does not talk about compulsory vaccination at all, but researchers talk about vaccination report The following: “Although vaccines remain highly effective in preventing severe illness and death from COVID-19, our findings suggest that vaccination is not sufficient to prevent the spread of the delta variant in households with close contacts. <…> Further public health and social measures remain important to reduce the spread of the virus, even among vaccinated people.” Let’s translate it again into clear and simple language: “Vaccines work, but even in fully vaccinated groups, prevention is needed, and in case of spread, quarantine.”

At the same time, the authors of the mailing list missed (either intentionally or unintentionally) a rather important conclusion from the authors of the study. Scientists report, that “the risk of infection increased over time two to three months after the second dose of the vaccine.” This proposal suggests that the effectiveness of even two doses of the vaccine decreases over time, which leads us to the need for revaccination. This idea is consistent with the fact that many countries peace revaccination already recognized necessary For stops distribution infections. However, the study does not directly talk about revaccination, because revaccination in the UK started only on September 16, and the study ended on September 15. However, for some reason, the authors of the newsletter attribute to scientists the words that revaccinated people get just as seriously ill as unvaccinated people.

To summarize the above, the authors of the newsletter, calling themselves “doctors for the truth,” arbitrarily took the words of scientists “convenient” for them out of context, while completely ignoring those conclusions that do not coincide with their views. In addition, they added their own, unconfirmed thoughts to the text, in particular that the only bonus of vaccination is faster elimination of the virus from the nasopharynx, and entitled the post with a flashy title.