CDiddy, The FDA and manufacturers constructed t
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The FDA and manufacturers constructed trials to evaluate the ability to prevent symptomatic and severe infection.
Logically is appears that the vaccines may prevent infection or reduce viral load in those infected, but that to my knowledge has not been demonstrated.
If the vaccines reduce viral load, as well as prevent severe disease, the infected individuals, by having lower viral load, will be less capable of infecting others.
Mutations occur during reproduction. Less reproduction results in fewer acquire mutations.
Vaccines (and previous infection/immunity to existing variants) are a selective pressure favoring new variants.
My appreciation of the science is that vaccines both slow the spread and reduce the proliferation of new variants/strains.