Pfizer’s COVID vaccine effective for at least six months, protects against variants, study says

[SteveG]

and now, a little good news

Pfizer’s COVID vaccine effective for at least six months, protects against variants, study says
https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/...story.html



The COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech remains 91% effective at protecting against coronavirus for at least six months after the second shot.

The findings, released by the drugmakers on Thursday, marks the first look at how long the jabs protect against the virus.

Researchers initially believed the vaccine would only block the virus for about 90 days, but the ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial revealed the time frame is at least double their initial estimates.

According to the newly released findings, there were no major safety concerns among the 12,000 volunteers who are at least six months past their second dose of the vaccine. Researchers noted most participants did experience typical, short-term side effects including fatigue and sore arms.

Out of the 927 trial participants who did become infected with COVID-19 more than a week after their second dose, only 77 received the active vaccine, compared with 850 who got a placebo.

[Lemon Drop]

That's awesome. Let's hope for another 6, at least. Bless those folks who went first, the trial volunteers. 21st century heroes.

[davester]

Lemon Drop wrote: Bless those folks who went first, the trial volunteers. 21st century heroes.

Oh please! Drug trials with paid volunteers happen all the time and mRNA vaccines were invented and used on people prior to Covid so the safety risks were minimal. Those people are not heroes. You might have called them heroes if they participated in a challenge trial (i.e. were deliberately infected with the virus) but that never happened.

[JoeH]

davester wrote:
[quote=Lemon Drop]Bless those folks who went first, the trial volunteers. 21st century heroes.

Oh please! Drug trials with paid volunteers happen all the time and mRNA vaccines were invented and used on people prior to Covid so the safety risks were minimal. Those people are not heroes. You might have called them heroes if they participated in a challenge trial (i.e. were deliberately infected with the virus) but that never happened.
None of those prior mRNA vaccines ever made to approved status, so saying the safety risks were "minimal" is overstating things a bit. The results for everything before the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were poor, with some very serious side effects in some of the trials of those previous vaccines.