That was over a year ago, just before the Delta variant was discovered. Since Delta became prevalent, there has been little talk of herd immunity.

The quote I posted was contemporaneous with the quote from the parent comment, which claims Fauci prepped us for 50% VE but he later claimed herd immunity was possible which afaik implies far greater than 50% VE.

The parent comment asked "who sold these ideas [that vaccines prevent transmission] to the general public?" From the quote I posted, it certainly seems like Fauci did.

Is there something I'm missing here?

From above: "Instead, Fauci said, scientists are hoping for a vaccine that is 75 percent effective — but even a 50 or 60 percent success rate would be considered a win."

The number 50 was mentioned in passing, but it doesn't sound like he was predicting any specific efficacy number, only that it would not be as high as the rosy 90%+ that was shown by some data. To me, parsing these words is a little nit-picky, since we are talking about a 2 year period during which multiple new and unexpected strains have become dominant, and vast amounts of new clinical data have been published.

The claim that herd immunity is possible seems to imply some base efficacy rate, the actual value of which I agree is not important here. (Although maybe it doesn't. I really don't know.)

And it's true that the quotes come from early on in the pandemic.

However, the claim that it was randos on Twitter and not the experts - at any time - who purveyed the idea that the Covid vaccines would significantly prevent transmission - unlike flu vaccines - is contradicted by the quote from Fauci that I posted in response to the question: "who sold these ideas to the public?"

Yeah the Delta variant is the only one that has really mattered at all.

That was something that literally nobody expected, not even epidemiologists or virologists. Goodbye herd immunity argument entirely. Everyone catches SARS-CoV-2 sooner or later.