By Alex P. Vidal
“Misinformation or distrust of vaccines can be like a contagion that can spread as fast as measles.”—Theresa Tam
“WILL you be taking the COVID-19 vaccine?” asked a survey in the United States undertaken by KTUL Channel 8.
Even after being tested negative in three COVID-19 tests in the last three months in New Jersey (once) and New York City (twice), my answer was a quick “yes, I will take the vaccine as soon as it is available.”
Will you take the vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna?
“Both if necessary—one after the other,” was my second answer.
Like the swings at a playground, says the KTUL Channel 8, when it comes to feelings about a COVID-19 vaccine it’s not uncommon for people to waver back and forth.
“We’ve been waiting on one or more COVID-19 vaccines for months, unsure of not only when they would arrive but how effective they would be when they did,” C/Net’s Dale Smith observed.
“Now it appears the two vaccines that will most likely be the first to receive Food and Drug Administration authorization might get here before 2021. Not only that, but clinical trials have demonstrated both are over 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 infections.”
That means at least nine out of 10 people who receive those vaccines will likely not contract COVID-19, even if they’re exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease, after being inoculated, Smith surmised.
StatNews reported that Moderna, joined by U.S. government scientists, announced November 16 that their mRNA vaccine candidate was 94.5 percent effective in preventing Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, according to an interim analysis of a 30,000-patient clinical trial.
The news comes exactly one week after Pfizer and BioNTech said their respective Covid-19 vaccine candidate, also created using mRNA technology, was more than 90 percent effective in its own 60,000-patient clinical trial.
-o0o-
Here’s what we know—and still need to learn—about the two most advanced Covid-19 vaccines and how they might reshape the pandemic that has killed 1.3 million people worldwide and infected at least 54.5 million, according to StatNews.
It’s too early to tell for certain, but the overall efficacy of the vaccines appears to be similar, based on the data disclosed to date.
This isn’t altogether surprising, since the Moderna and the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine candidates are reportedly both based on the same kind of technology.
Based on data disclosed November 16, “the Moderna vaccine appears to have been protective in important subsets of participants—the elderly and people from communities of color, the latter of which make up 37 percent of the volunteers in Moderna’s trial.”
Moderna also released data about the number of participants who developed severe Covid-19.
There were 11 cases of severe disease, all of them in the placebo group. The elderly often respond less robustly to vaccines and are more vulnerable to having severe cases of Covid-19, if infected.
The clinical trial conducted by Pfizer and BioNTech reportedly included the same subpopulations of participants, but specific results have not been disclosed.
-o0o-
‘VACCINES’ safety profile encouraging.’ So far, both vaccines appear to be generally tolerable—but by no means painless, added the StatNews. In its announcement November 16, Moderna said it observed a few short-lived severe side effects in volunteers, including fatigue, muscle pain, and headache.
None required hospitalization.
For its part, Pfizer said last week that its independent data monitors reported no serious safety concerns.
In an earlier update from its Phase 1 clinical trial, Pfizer’s vaccine led to mild or moderate fever and pain at the site of injection, side effects that resolved over time, the company said.
But the most important safety data won’t come until patients have been followed for months and even years.
Pfizer and Moderna have promised to collect and disclose that information in time.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, was a former editor of two dailies in Iloilo, Philippines)
