In the early days of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, scientists were hopeful it might herald the long-awaited turning point of the pandemic, not only bringing the threat of severe disease, hospitalization, and death to an end but also completely halting the spread of the disease.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the White House, said in December 2020 that if the nation's COVID-19 vaccine campaign went well, the U.S. approach herd immunity by summer’s end and “normality that is close to where we were before” by the end of 2021.

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A series of events last summer, including a widespread COVID-19 outbreak that hit highly vaccinated Provincetown, Massachusetts, soon swayed those hopes, as evidence emerged that vaccinated people were contracting the virus more frequently than initially expected and transmitting it to others.

In the months that followed the Provincetown outbreak, breakthrough infections would shift from a statistical anomaly to a regular occurrence.

Experts say current vaccines are still doing their most important job - dramatically reducing their risk of severe illness and death. But they are no longer hopeful vaccines will stop the virus in its tracks, now that it's clear that vaccinated people can develop mild diseases and transmit illness to others.

The astoundingly high levels of protection against infection that were initially observed, especially for the mRNA vaccines, created by Pfizer and Moderna, have largely dissipated, especially for those with one or two doses combined with extremely transmissible variants.

“When it comes to vaccines and COVID-19 infection, there’s good news and bad news,” said Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center. “The good news is the vaccines are still doing an amazing job at preventing serious illness, hospitalization, and death. The bad news is that effectiveness at preventing infection is much lower in the omicron era, and wanes quickly after vaccination.”