The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s controversial plan to enforce COVID-19 vaccinations for large businesses—recently enjoined by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals— was ostensibly designed to minimize “deadly outbreaks of COVID-19.” The ability of COVID-19 vaccines to prevent transmission and protect life is at the heart of the OSHA mandate and the fierce debate over similar mandates now embroiling much of the world. Nearly 18,000 scientific papers have been published since last year on COVID-19 and vaccines, so the task of sifting through the evidence to help critically evaluate whether vaccines reduce risk of transmission and death seems daunting. It turns out, though, that two studies stand so far above the rest in terms of rigor and quality. These two studies, which are continuation of the trials that FDA required for emergency use approval, were published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine. They are fundamentally distinct from …