[jvickers]

'ineffective' and 'effective' do not have very strict definitions. Something could be ineffective compared to how effective it was presented as being, such as the recent COVID vaccine. Here is one example of Joe Biden spreading vaccine misinformation: https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-2021-video-saying-vaccina...

"[COVID] vaccines are ineffective" is a fair assertion if the standard of something being 'effective' is preventing getting infected at all.

A better way to challenge the validity of that assertion is to make more effective COVID vaccines. In my view, bypassing the stage of creation of spike proteins and more directly getting the cells able to produce the relevant antibodies when needed would be a better vaccine, possibly more effective. It would also likely be safer (as the spike protein itself is dangerous, and the immune response to it can also be dangerous, by the sounds of it when the vaccine has not stayed localised in the arm but moved to the heart), so a vaccine that has solved that issue would do better when looked at in terms of a risk / reward ratio.

"[COVID] vaccines are effective [enough to be worth the risk of side-effects]" is something that would be better addressed through improving the vaccines themselves, possibly through improved public messaging, but I don't think as yet the data is there that supports that in an unequivocal way, and improved vaccines with greatly improved efficacy and safety which are then accurately described would be the best way to get the message accross.

[dc396]

Someone (including the President of the US) asserting that any vaccine is 100% effective and will prevent someone from "getting infected at all" simply means that individual does not understand how vaccines and infectious diseases caused by viruses work.

[jvickers]

Indeed. My point is that this sets a standard for what is considered 'effective' and if it falls short of that standard, those who say it's 'ineffective' by that unrealistic standard, that is still correct.

Something can be ineffective compared to something else. Such as a COVID vaccine being ineffective compared to some expectations or representations of it.