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Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#31
post #18

Great news and the markets are reacting very positively to the news as well which indicates to me this could be the beginning of the end!

I remember that in March somebody posted here an entry saying that mutation of the virus will make vaccinations only useful in the short term. Were these concerns already addressed at this stage? We have seen mutations due to minks recently which could make the vaccinations ineffective. These mutations might have been controlled but similar situations may arise in the next years. For these reasons I am not entirely s…

Considering Denmark is also one of the richest countries on earth we can neither expect other countries to a) detect such a mutation early and b) handle the issue promptly.

So I think it's somewhat likely that we'll see mutations emerge all over the world.

Whether this vaccine works depends on how early we get most people vaccinated. It may only be a short term patch, which we will see once it's rolled out, you can't really predict the long term without any measurements.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#32
post #10
post #5

At the time of writing (2020-11-09 12:04 UTC) the article uses "90% of people" and "90% protection" interchangeably. I assume it means "90% of individuals achieve immunity", rather than "individuals achieve 90% immunity". EDIT: See child comment re: Pfizer press release. EDIT 2: See [1] for said press release, which has more detailed information than the BBC article. [1] https://investors.pfizer.com/investor-news/pre…

From Pfizer's press release, they use "vaccine efficacy" which has a very specific definition. "Vaccine efficacy is the percentage reduction of disease in a vaccinated group of people compared to an unvaccinated group" So basically a 90% reduction in Covid infection.

This CDC page defines it in terms of cases:

https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson3/section6.html

So "disease" is probably an infection there, not relatively milder infection.

90% still crushes the transmission rate.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#35
post #21
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Pfizer's press release, they use "vaccine efficacy" which has a very specific definition. "Vaccine efficacy is the percentage reduction of disease in a vaccinated group of people compared to an unvaccinated group" So basically a 90% reduction in Covid infection.

Can't that be interpreted as either of the options in the parent comment?

90% of the time it works every time. :-)

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#36
post #10
post #5

At the time of writing (2020-11-09 12:04 UTC) the article uses "90% of people" and "90% protection" interchangeably. I assume it means "90% of individuals achieve immunity", rather than "individuals achieve 90% immunity". EDIT: See child comment re: Pfizer press release. EDIT 2: See [1] for said press release, which has more detailed information than the BBC article. [1] https://investors.pfizer.com/investor-news/pre…

From Pfizer's press release, they use "vaccine efficacy" which has a very specific definition. "Vaccine efficacy is the percentage reduction of disease in a vaccinated group of people compared to an unvaccinated group" So basically a 90% reduction in Covid infection.

So what does it mean? Less severe symptoms or sterilizing immunity?

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#37

Great news and the markets are reacting very positively to the news as well which indicates to me this could be the beginning of the end!

The markets seem to wildly yo-yo with every piece of negative and positive news. Case in point: Zoom is currently down 10% but I’ll bet it will have rallied by the end of the day.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#39
Interesting timing here with regards to the US election.

Edit/Update: "She said she learned of the results from the outside panel of experts shortly after 1 p.m. on Sunday, and that the timing was not influenced by the election."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/heal...

Edit2: I failed to realize that it was necessary to point out that the timing of this press release is interesting. I wasn't intending to imply the vaccine would be held back for any political reason.

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