Good to keep in mind, but also those are slightly different cases. One is a low number of very recent (edit: variants) that mutated quickly, the other one is a large number of established strains we've been researching for ages.
SARS-CoV-2 still has one strain. The current vaccines are hyper-targeted at "variants", something much smaller than a strain.
Think of "influenza" like "dog", "strain" like "chihuahua" vs "golden retriever", and "variant" like "chihuahua with blue eyes" vs "chihuahua with brown eyes".
The distinction can get a bit muddied at the border* but I don't think we've reached that point yet.
It's easy to nay say, the COVID mRNA vaccines were great, it's nuts that people hold them to some imagined standard.
Like a single dose is less effective than multiple doses, especially if later doses are targeted at the circulating virus, but the first shot has an enormous protective effect, alerting the immune system to the type of virus.
Downvoted because the standard was not imagined; public messaging was blasted worldwide at EUA and revised downwards over time as more received the vaccine, damaging public trust in vaccination campaigns.
The three that stuck out the most to me, that I very clearly remember, and hurt my trust:
Early in the pandemic, it was claimed that masks were not required. It was later admitted that this was to help the shortage, at the expense of the truth, and somewhat at the expense of the public [1].
President Biden went on national TV and bluntly stated, "If you get vaccinated, you won't get COVID." This was fiction, even at the time, with fact checks pointing it out the same day. [2]
Then later, "If you are fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask.", also fiction at the time, as the fact checks the same day pointed out [3]. There was no science to back this idea that vaccinations significantly reduced transmission, as it wasn't part of Pfizers tests [4].
Apparently related, some FDA officials resigned [5].
Things stated as fact that never should have been, and no attempt to correct it later, is what did it for me. There were many more small things that, appropriately, hurt my trust, and I feel a little crazy that people don't remember much of this.
