Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is 90% effective in preventing coronavirus in those who haven’t been infected ever before, shows data from latest trials

• Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine is 90% effective in those who haven’t been infected by coronavirus before.
• This is higher than the efficacy target laid out by White House coronavirus advisor Anthony Fauci of 50% to 60%
• At this level, the COVID-19 vaccine will give people protection within 28 days of the first dose, the latest trial shows.

The COVID-19 vaccine being developed by the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotech firm BioNTech is getting closer to becoming a reality. The latest data from their late-stage vaccine trial shows that their COVID-19 vaccine is 90% more effective in preventing an infection if a person has never come in contact with it before.

This means that those who get the vaccine will be protected within 28 days of the first dose — and there is only a two-dose schedule.

This is far more effective than the threshold laid out by the White House coronavirus advisor Anthony Fauci, who has previously stated that a vaccine that is 50% to 60% effective would be acceptable.

However, the efficacy of the final vaccine may vary as more results continue to pour in. “The first set of results from our Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent COVID-19,” said Pfizer chairman and CEO Albert Bourla in a statement.

The current findings are based on an interim analysis conducted after 94 participants contracted the virus and will continue until 164 cases have occurred. If the data holds up, it could mean a milestone for the world, which has been scrambling to find a cure for COVID-19 for nearly a year now.

Current projections forecast that Pfizer and BioTech are poised to produce up to 50 million doses of their vaccine in 2020, and another 1.3 billion in 2021. The complete data from the phase 3 trial, which kicked off back in July, will be submitted for scientific peer-review and subsequent submission.

After they have two months of data has been compiled, which is currently on track for the third week of November, the companies plan to submit for emergency use authorization to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration soon



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