Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine candidate 90% effective?

[Hopfgeist]

The Guardian reports up to 90% effectiveness for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine candidate. Phase III trials are set to last until May next year, but interim results look very positive.

This is, of course, based on claims by the manufacturer, so needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but it sounds like some piece of good news.

Cheers,
HG.

[Curt3g]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... l#biontech

[foldy]

It is true the company is from Germany and they already make plans for the national distribution of vaccine in Germany by the military. But it will take month because they have to build several vaccine centers which can store the vaccine at -80C. From there it gets distributed in first wave to the important and threatened people like doctors and nurses, teachers and so on. Then the old and weak people if there are no dangerous side effects for them. Then we need to wait for more vaccine production and then comes everyone - at least 50% of the people for herd immunity.

But north of Germany in Denmark they breed millions of minks animals. Now they got covid virus too and it mutated. So they kill millions of these animals. But its too late and already humans got infected by mutated corona virus. Now 250000 people in the region are closed off. They don't know yet if the mutated corona virus called "Cluster 5" is bad or just like the COVID-19 and if the currently tested vaccine will help too or not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_5

[kiore]

Although promising this kind of mRNA vaccine, like Moderna's version, have serious problems with storage and transport due to the temperatures required which will make it very difficult to roll out. It also requires two doses which I expect will need to be given 28 days apart also contributing to the complexity of vaccinating large numbers of people.

Correction: I misremembered is not 28 days but 21 between 1st and 2nd dose.

[Jonazz]

Great news! If I'm correct, this will be the first RNA vaccine ever. It's exciting to think about all the advances in science!

[bruce]

Yes, it's very good news ... but is preliminary.

I'm particularly interested in the availability in the USA. Additional news reports this weekend discussed plans for storage issues and potential availability here. (e.g.- do we get supplies before or after the Germans?)

Who/when will tests be performed on the various candidates against the mink variation and other variations?

[foldy]

I guess Germans will test it first, if they survive then its rollout to US.

[bruce]

Stockpiles of the domestic candidate(s) are being planned. The fact that the manufacturer(s) have not announcend that its' N% effetive may mean that the data have not been summarized yet or it may mean it hasn't been certified as >50% yet. If the numbers are good, you'd think that the domestic manufacturer(s) would like to gain a market share against Pfizer but that's all messed up by the tweets (politics) coming out of the White House.

[HaloJones]

At the very earliest this gets rolled out in the summer of 2021. Consider me whelmed by the news.

[Burlingtonian]

Like everyone else I desperately want the Coronavirus nightmare to be over but suspect that the -80C (-112F) storage temperature required for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine candidate (not yet peer-reviewed) would be a huge logistical impediment, particularly for countries still scrambling to simply get adequate supplies of PPE. Perhaps Mr. Bezos could drop a few billion of his pandemic profits on specialized freezers. For now I will defer to Dr. Fauci - hopefully he is still employed.

[kiore]

Although I am optimistic that this will an early vaccine candidate maybe available for small numbers of people within a few months, this is really not the vaccine we need long term. The storage issues will be solved initially by mobile special freezers that take vaccines to vaccination sites, they do have practice at this as have had over 40k people in the testing phase, but this not really the way to effectively do the mass campaigns needed especially not globally.
I suspect people who think that an available effective vaccine will bring this pandemic to an end quickly are due for disappointment, we are still missing an effective treatments, vaccination as an elimination strategy is a far longer game.

[foldy]

Looks like in USA next vaccine by Moderna with 95% effective and only -20°C needed for cooling. This will be the last winter of COVID-19. And maybe FAH should also switch to other diseases again ... no more need for folding corona-virus.

[kiore]

Looks like in USA next vaccine by Moderna with 95% effective and only -20°C needed for cooling. This will be the last winter of COVID-19. And maybe FAH should also switch to other diseases again ... no more need for folding corona-virus.

I wish it were that easy it could take a decade to eliminate this virus if that even possible we are still battling Polio half a century after an effective vaccine, we still have limited therapeutics available for treatment and looking like we are going to have to live with this virus for quite a long time still.

[foldy]

Yes, but with vaccine available you don't need lockdowns anymore and Covid-19 gets finally equal to influenza.

[Joe_H]

This appears to be good news, but I am waiting on independent review of their trial data. So far from what I understand neither Pfizer or Moderna have released any of that data for review, so we only have their reports. Further, if I am understanding reports correctly, what is being reported is antibodies being detected about a week after the vaccine was administered, not whether those antibodies were effective at protecting against the coronavirus.