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I keep seeing this clip (and then people referencing it in other media) all over the conservative internet, along with conservative people drawing the same conclusions, that this is some bombshell piece of evidence that will tear apart the myth of vaccine mandates. Let me be clear: I want this, and the conclusion to be true, because I want a piece of bulletproof evidence that I can use against people who still believe that mandatory vaccination was and still is the best way to go. I don't like those people or their mandates, and I'd like to argue against them with very firm evidence. But I'm skeptical that this clip is that, especially because I haven't really seen anyone on the other side acknowledging anything about it, whether it's to eat crow or argue back. It seems to me to be potentially something where the conservatives once again think they have rock solid proof of something, but it never goes further than that, because we never even hear the other side's response to it, because it's so miniscule that they don't even have to acknowledge it. In other words, the same old of people living in different universes.
Let me say again, I hope I eat the above words. I want to steelman this particular clip and conclusion, by attacking it the way its opponents may attack it. So here are some questions:
There's a weird splice in the video between Roos and Pfizer woman. Are we in-fact seeing something that was edited to look like some sort of damning admission, instead of an actual damning admission?
Pfizer woman says "did we know about stopping immunization before it entered the market". She doesn't say "transmission" or "spread" or "reinfection" or whatever, she says "immunization", which seems to make no sense in the context presented. Was this a clip that was taken out of context to make it sound like she was really trying to refer to the question Roos asked, but it was about something else?
Does this have any implications on other vaccines and their trials, like Moderna or J&J?
Even if the vaccine was not explicitly tested for transmission, was it still a reasonable assumption for them to make that it could have a decent chance to stop transmission? Or was it a reasonable assumption for politicians to make, and there was just some information lost in the shuffle?
I don't know much about Roos, I've never heard of him before, but does he have much bipartisan cred? He comes off in the whole clip like a conservative commentator the likes of Tucker Carlson, gloating about how he just owned some lib. He even has a gotcha-like printout saying "Pfizer CEO? Where is Transparency?" in front of him when he asks the question, as if he's only asking as a formality and has already drawn his conclusions. The way he comes off, and the above edits and strangeness makes this whole conclusion that this is a death-blow to the conspiracy of vaccine mandates seem somewhat non-credible.
The term "bipartisan" doesn't really apply in European politics, unless the two "parties" you're referring to are abstract pro- and anti-vaccination groups.
That said, he is apparently a member of a fringe right-wing party, so my guess would be "no".
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Who has bi-partisan cred these days?
Tom Hanks apparently, for one.
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