A recent item here faulted the Times for criticizing Rush Limbaugh for having "pushed dangerous lies, at one point likening the coronavirus to the common cold." I pointed out that the Times itself had published that comparison. That generated some pushback in the Smartertimes comments. For what it's worth, the Times did it again in David Leonhardt's morning newsletter. Leonhardt writes, "The accumulated scientific evidence suggests the chances are very small that a vaccinated person could infect someone else with a severe case of Covid. (A mild case is effectively the common cold.)"
The same Leonhardt column also overestimates the problem of vaccine resistance, blaming experts who say people should keep wearing masks and distancing even post-vaccination. Leonhardt writes, "Nationwide, nearly half of Americans would refuse a shot if offered one immediately, polls suggest." The link goes to two somewhat older polls from a single organization. The column fails to cite other polls, which show vaccine hesitance has been declining and is at less than a third of the population. In the New Yorker, Atul Gawande, interviewed by David Remnick, says, "We now have more than seventy per cent of Americans reporting that if they had the chance to get the vaccine today, they would take it. That is higher than we've seen, and I think that will continue to rise." Here is a poll from Ipsos showing 71% of Americans agree "If a vaccine for Covid-19 were available to me, I would get it." Gallup had a similar finding: "71% of Americans are now willing to be vaccinated, up from 65% in late December and the highest recorded since July."