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How did you and a whole bunch of other people apparently hear "95% efficacy against severe disease" and somehow decide that meant "100% efficacy against infection"?


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No, they really didn't.

November, 2020: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...

> Primary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95% effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose;170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were evaluated, with 162 observed in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group

November, 2020: https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d...

> This first interim analysis was based on 95 cases, of which 90 cases of COVID-19 were observed in the placebo group versus 5 cases observed in the mRNA-1273 group, resulting in a point estimate of vaccine efficacy of 94.5% (p <0.0001).

April, 2021: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...

> Thirty-two cases of severe disease, as defined by the CDC, were observed in the placebo group versus none in the BNT162b2 vaccinated group, indicating that the vaccine was 100% efficacious in this analysis against severe disease by the CDC definition (95% CI, [88.0,100.0]). Twenty-one severe cases, as defined by the FDA, were observed in the placebo group versus one case in the BNT162b2 vaccinated group, indicating 95.3% efficacy by the FDA definition (95% CI, [71.0, 99.9]).

They've been clear since the very beginning that vaccinated people could still get infected, and that efficacy was regarding severe disease.


I stand corrected, the number I had in mind is indeed about 100% protection from death and severe disease [0]. That was back when people were potentially waiting for more effective vaccines.

[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...


Then you surely can link such an announcement?




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