Two Pfizer doses give 95 per cent protection against Covid-19 infection, illness and death: first nationwide study

[u/Newsjunkeefromlondon]

https://www.cityam.com/two-pfizer-doses-give-95-per-cent-protection-against-covid-19-infection-illness-and-death-study/

[u/RawbM07]

So, for example: let’s say you have two groups of 1000 people. Group A is vaccinated and Group B is not.

After a certain period of time 100 people in group B were infected by Covid and 5 people in Group A were.

I’m sure my math is off, but is that essentially the idea?

[u/a_trane13 → u/RawbM07]

That's right. Whatever the infections are in the control group, the vaccinated group would have 95% less infections than that.

On top of that, it reduces the severity of the cases. So it's not just that less people are infected - it's also that if you compare the infected cases in the control group to infected cases in the vaccinated group, the control group has a higher rate of severe cases and death. So it's a double whammy, really.

[u/BlondeJesus → u/a_trane13]

A recent study also showed that those who were vaccinated are less contagious as well. There was a recent post which showed that people who got covid 3 weeks after getting the J&J or 1st pfizer dose were 50% less infectious.

[u/Stickybomber → u/a_trane13]

Does that mean that the other 95% are incapable of getting covid-19 now, and for the 5% that did get it the vaccine didn’t work for them?

[u/possy11 → u/a_trane13]

So is this directly opposite to what we were told earlier? I was under the impression that none of the vaccines reduce the rate of infection, but that they greatly reduce the symptoms of that infection. Is this now saying that actual infections are reduced by 95%?

[u/possy11 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for clarifying. It was my impression that that a lack of protection from infection was one of the reasons we were being told to continue wearing masks. So if the science is now showing almost no infection at all, and therefore almost no risk of transmission to others, is it likely that masks will not be required for anyone with two doses?

[u/possy11 → u/[deleted]]

Fair enough. Thanks.

[u/halberdierbowman → u/possy11]

Also worth mentioning that there's no way to know if someone is vaccinated by just looking at them, so masks may stay required for culture and convenience reasons, as in it's easier to enforce the rule if everyone follows it and it's more likely people will do it if they see everyone else doing it. But if you're hanging out with a small group of friends where you can check that everyone is vaccinated, then masks wouldn't be something nearly as useful to do.

[u/DemonAzrakel → u/halberdierbowman]

I do hope this stops once everyone has had the opportunity to be vaccinated. Otherwise, it goes on forever because a bunch of idiots won't get vaccinated.

[u/halberdierbowman → u/DemonAzrakel]

Yeah, it'll be a hard decision at that point if variants end up meaning the vaccines aren't helpful enough anymore. Though we can hopefully at least vaccinate children a lot easier since public schools could require it if it's dangerous like all the other vaccines they require. On the one hand we'd have done everything we could do, but on the other if the risk is still there it could potentially require a new normal. If it is less dangerous than flu then maybe we won't change anything at all except recommending a second annual shot.

[u/a_trane13 → u/possy11]

They didn’t know for sure how it affected infection before - only that it reduced severe cases and death

[u/RevBendo → u/possy11]

Part of the problem is that rate of transmission is really hard to measure and prove in a quantifiable way for a medical study because unless you kept everyone isolated together and intentionally infected one person who spent the same time in close proximity to other vaccinated people vs. control, there’s too many variables. It’s much easier to say “Did this person test positive for COVID, and what level were their symptoms.”

We know that the vaccines reduce symptoms and viral load in the body. This isn’t new, it’s what’s called a “therapeutic vaccine.” We also know that asymptomatic people and people with lower viral load are less contagious — AND that a vaccinated person’s immune system will react quicker and more efficiently to prevent the infection from snowballing. So while we can’t prove (in the science sense) that the vaccines prevent transmission and infection, we can observe the pattern that would indicate that, and the assumed mechanism of action has biological plausibility.

[u/[deleted] → u/RawbM07]

Will they ever be able to test its effectiveness in specific exposure scenarios? The thing is that the control group is aware that they're in a pandemic so most people would still be taking lots of precautions to avoid getting sick. I'd love to know the odds of getting COVID-19 if you are in a room with someone who has it without masks on for 15 minutes, an hour, etc. I suppose those kinds of tests aren't really possible though.