Fauci: Early COVID Vaccines Will Prevent Symptoms, Not the Virus

3D render of a medical background with abstract virus cells Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. As people eagerly await new updates about potential coronavirus vaccines, questions still remain about how well they will work and what they will do to stem the pandemic. Importantly, the initial COVID-19 vaccines will prevent symptoms in those who become infected with the coronavirus rather than kill the virus itself, Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit on Monday. “The primary thing you want to do is that if people get infected, prevent them from getting sick, and if you prevent them from getting sick, you will ultimately prevent them from getting seriously ill,” he said. Preventing symptoms is a “primary endpoint”