Your point is important, and valid.
That said, the two are interrelated.
Reducing cases reduces the potential for people to become hospitalized, which reduces the damage it does to human beings. So I see value to boosters if they reduce R0 by protecting more effectively against infection.
And it becomes a problem:
- If you say it's only 50% effective after six months, the vaccine-hesitant are gonna say "oh, I get this shot and then I just need to keep getting them every six months? When does this end?"
- If you say it's 93% effective after six months, those who have already had the shot say "oh, it still protects really well after infection? Then why do I need a booster?"
The message should address both groups head-on. The vaccine is effective and it remains effective over time at the most important metric--keeping people out of the hospital. The booster's goal, therefore, is to help keep the spread down and protect those who can't or won't get the vaccine, and help us all get back to normal again, which is what we want. And maybe, just maybe, the booster will show more staying power over time at preventing infection--it's too early to predict.
The problem is that in that article from The Hill, it does neither. They're not very clear about numbers. They say it's 47% effective after six months, but 53% effective against Delta after four months, but 93% effective at preventing hospitalization at six months. As a reader I'm forced to assume that the 47% and 53% numbers are related to staving off infection.
With confusing numbers thrown around, not defined, AND NO COHERENT MESSAGE EXPLAINING THE NUMBERS AND WHAT THEY MEAN, it's effing useless.
It's even worse than useless, it becomes destructive.
I sincerely believe that our biggest problem right now, is that there is no goal. There is no idea of what "managed" looks like.
There are a lot of people that still believe that the virus can be eliminated, and that nobody should even consider getting back to normal until that occurs. They experience near-seizure-inducing panic at the sight of football stadiums full of people. They continue to refer to such events as "super-spreaders" even though there is no evidence of that-- in fact at this point, the evidence here in Austin at least, is that it hasn't impacted community case levels at all.
On the flipside, there are hoaxers and anti-vaxers and other various individualists that either don't believe it's an issue, or they don't believe there's anything that can or should be done to stop it. Messaging that "we're going to keep masking forever" is only going to make these people dig in their heels further.
With no goal, with no target, stated, both of these groups freely spin out of control and create more churn and divisiveness.
