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This week, we enriched ourselves with two very important new data about vaccines against the coronavirus and the spread of the epidemic.
An important fact is that the vaccines provide exactly the results that they showed in their clinical trials in real life. Today, we can say this with greater certainty about the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. These vaccines were 95% and 94% effective in preventing the development of symptomatic Covid-19, respectively, in preauthorization clinical trials in 43,448 and 30,420 patients, respectively. This in itself is a great achievement and exceeds the efficacy of most vaccines used against other diseases.
However, the question may arise whether the efficacy measured in a clinical trial also exists in real, everyday conditions.
In science, this is always a huge dilemma, as the conditions of a clinical trial and the patient population are not necessarily the same as those experienced in daily vaccine use. In the case of Sars-CoV-2, in addition, the efficacy against known and possibly unknown mutant viruses or variants is added to the questions.
We are getting increasingly reassuring answers to these questions. A few days ago, a study was published in the columns of the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the world’s most respected professional medical journals, examining California healthcare workers after they were vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine. Obviously, they have a higher risk of Covid-19, as they have provided these patients on a daily basis.
However, the study concluded with practically the same results as in the phase 3 clinical trial of the vaccine, which means that only 7 of the 36,659 health workers evaluated and vaccinated were born, that is, seven positive Covid tests 15 days after the second vaccination. Furthermore, the patients were assessed weekly, even if they were asymptomatic (there was no such evidence in the preauthorization clinical trial).
There is a long but dizzying line, some confusion and a military vaccination of the teachers.
Based on these, it can be said that the vaccines also prevented asymptomatic cases in an exceptionally good proportion, therefore
The Pfizer vaccine also prevents asymptomatic distribution, in addition, in the highest risk group.
This is despite the fact that the epidemic in California was at its peak at the time of the investigation and the California virus was already spreading. Therefore, the vaccine also protected healthcare workers from the new variant.
This was confirmed Monday by the US Epidemiological Authority, the CDC’s own study, which, while involving fewer, about 4,000 patients, was conducted at multiple sites in a total of eight states. In doing so, the researchers found that the first dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had an 80 percent chance of protecting them from the new type of coronavirus infection, including asymptomatic cases.
Therefore, vaccines protect against the disease not only in clinical trials but also in real life, and they have also been shown to prevent asymptomatic spread against previous hypotheses. So the opening is very close.
The author is a specialist in allergology and clinical immunology.
(Cover image: An elderly woman is vaccinated in Germany. Photo: Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert / picture alliance / Getty Images)
The virologist reported data on asymptomatic infection.
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