Pfizer says it will take 100 days - pending regulatory approval. And their plan is to use results of safety/efficacy trials on Delta and Beta to speed approval of any booster.
The efficacy claimed in the trials against ancestral and alpha symptomatic DISEASE (not infection) was 94-95%, not including immunocompromised who were not included in the original trial. How is that offering full protection against infection?
Since then, there has been Delta, which changed the game since it overpowers low antibody levels, and waning.
There was a lot of discussion very early on by the CDC and public health people that it may not prevent infection. So it’s not true that a wonderful miracle was promised by medical authorities (politicians and the media promised otherwise of course).
I think what was least discussed early on was the possibility and
likelihood of waning. It sounds like this was well known by many immunologists that three doses would be needed, but not advertised as likely (which would have been helpful to defuse statements like yours). Even so, there WAS some discussion about this at the time - many people advocated longer spacing between shots to boost protection and help the initial rollout, back in December 2020. Unfortunate. Though in their defense, waning is more slow when dealing with ancestral virus (roughly half of waning seems to be due to Delta)
I don’t think the messaging from knowledgeable health & medical experts has been as bad as you state. I think it hasn’t been perfect, but I have not lost faith in those who speak directly about efficacy and what the shots do. (Agencies like CDC are another matter, but it was predictable that their messaging would be imperfect due to bureaucratic bungling.)
This is way worse messaging than anything I have seen from the CDC. The vaccine provides substantial and clear benefits for healthy individuals against all variants prior to 1.1.529, and very, very likely provides a lot of benefit there too (will be good to know ASAP). JFC, the COVID cranks were talking about T-cell cross protection 18 months ago, so the least they could do is accept that the vaccines will at a minimum do that! Of all the people in this pandemic, I feel the COVID cranks have really let me down the most with their inaccuracy and inconsistency. Really disappointing.