First Dose of Pfizer Vaccine Gives About 50% COVID Protection, Not 91% as claimed
An article published by The Sun and another article in The Evening Standard reported that the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine gives "91 per cent protection" from COVID-19 after just the first dose. The article refers to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. In a push to speed up the immunization in the UK, politicians such as former MP Tony Blair urged a faster roll out of the first vaccine in order to stop the surge of the virus, before stocks of a second dose are ready. Professor David Salisbury, in charge of immunization programs at the Department of Health until 2013, is quoted as saying, "If you look at the New England Journal of Medicine paper about the Pfizer vaccine..you give one dose and you get 91 per cent protection, you give two doses and you get 95 per cent."
The NEJM paper actually states that the efficacy between the first and second doses was found to be 52 percent when given 21 days apart. After the second dose, the efficacy raises to 95 percent.
A spokesperson at Pfizer has responded to the call for the aggressive roll out the first dose. "As has been previously reported and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the final primary efficacy analysis of our ongoing Phase 3 clinical study demonstrated a vaccine efficacy rate of 95 per cent in participants, from 7 days after the second dose.
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