More than 90% Effective COVID Vaccine from Pfizer

This Monday came with at least one piece of good news: early analysis of the drug-maker Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine trial showed that it is more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19. This makes Pfizer the first company to announce positive results from a late-stage vaccine trial.

Pfizer worked on the vaccine with the German drug-maker BioNTech, and has not released many details about the promising clinical trial. It is based on the first formal review of the data by an outside panel of experts, according to The New York Times. For now, even the slightest bit of information that the company did share – that the vaccine was “more than 90% effective in preventing the disease among trial volunteers who had no evidence of prior coronavirus infection” - is enough hope for an anxious world where the coronavirus has killed over 1.2 million people.

The expected 90% protection means that it will be as highly effective as the childhood measles vaccine, according to the NY Times. What’s more, according to Pfizer, no serious safety concerns have been raised in relation to the vaccine. However, like many other details, it’s not really clear how long the vaccine’s protection will last.



By Nini Dakhundaridze

Source: The New York Times