{"id":78686,"date":"2021-08-11T15:03:46","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T19:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=78686"},"modified":"2021-08-11T16:35:39","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T20:35:39","slug":"alarm-pfizer-only-42-effective-against-infection-in-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=78686","title":{"rendered":"ALARM: Pfizer only 42% effective against infection in July"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><strong>New data on coronavirus vaccine effectiveness may be &#8220;a wakeup call&#8221;<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><!--more-->Caitlin Owens<br \/>\nAXIOS<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_78711\" style=\"width: 777px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-78711\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78711\" src=\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-11-at-4.30.34-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"767\" height=\"436\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-11-at-4.30.34-PM.png 767w, https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-11-at-4.30.34-PM-300x171.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 100vw, 767px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-78711\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Illustration: Annelise Capossela\/Axios<\/p><\/div>\n<article class=\"grid-layout pt-20\">\n<div class=\"col-1-13 sm:col-3-11 \">\n<div class=\"b0w77w-0 jhsJV mt-12 mb-20 sm:mt-20 gtm-story-text p\">\n<p>A\u00a0<a class=\"gtm-content-click\" href=\"https:\/\/www.medrxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2021.08.06.21261707v1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-vars-link-text=\"new preprint study\" data-vars-click-url=\"https:\/\/www.medrxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2021.08.06.21261707v1\" data-vars-event-category=\"story\" data-vars-sub-category=\"story\" data-vars-item=\"in_content_link\">new preprint study<\/a>\u00a0that raises concerns about the mRNA vaccines&#8217; effectiveness against Delta \u2014\u00a0particularly Pfizer&#8217;s \u2014\u00a0has already grabbed the attention of top Biden administration officials.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What they&#8217;re saying:\u00a0<\/strong>The study found the Pfizer vaccine was only 42% effective against infection in July, when the Delta variant was dominant. &#8220;If that&#8217;s not a wakeup call, I don&#8217;t know what is,&#8221; a senior Biden official told Axios.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Driving the news:\u00a0<\/strong>The study, conducted by nference and the Mayo Clinic, compared the effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the Mayo Clinic Health System over time from January to July.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Overall, it found that the Moderna vaccine was 86% effective against infection over the study period, and Pfizer&#8217;s was 76%. Moderna&#8217;s vaccine was 92% effective against hospitalization and Pfizer&#8217;s was 85%.<\/li>\n<li>But the vaccines&#8217; effectiveness against infection dropped sharply in July, when the Delta variant&#8217;s prevalence in Minnesota had risen to over 70%.<\/li>\n<li>Moderna was 76% effective against infection, and Pfizer was only 42% effective.<\/li>\n<li>The study found similar results in other states. For example, in Florida, the risk of infection in July for people fully vaccinated with Moderna was about 60% lower than for people fully vaccinated with Pfizer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why it matters:\u00a0<\/strong>Although it has yet to be peer-reviewed, the study raises serious questions about both vaccines&#8217; long-term effectiveness, particularly Pfizer&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s unclear whether the results signify a reduction in effectiveness over time, a reduced effectiveness against Delta, or a combination of both.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cBased on the data that we have so far, it is a combination of both factors,&#8221; said Venky Soundararajan,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>a lead author of the study. &#8220;The Moderna vaccine is likely \u2014 very likely \u2014 more effective than the Pfizer vaccine in areas where Delta is the dominant strain, and the Pfizer vaccine appears to have a lower durability of effectiveness.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>He added that his team is working on a follow-up study that will try to differentiate between the durability of the two vaccines and their effectiveness against Delta.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Yes, but:\u00a0<\/strong>There has been no data so far that has found either vaccine&#8217;s protection against severe disease and death is significantly less against Delta, and the study notes that there doesn&#8217;t appear to be much of a difference in complications stemming from breakthrough infections based on which vaccine someone got.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>And experts cautioned against rushing to conclusions.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThis is the kind of surprising finding that needs confirmation before we should accept its validity,&#8221; said Cornell virologist John Moore.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Between the lines:\u00a0<\/strong>The two shots both use mRNA, but there are significant differences between them.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For example, Moderna is given in a stronger dose than Pfizer, and there is a slightly different time interval between shots.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;There are a few differences between what are known to be similar vaccines &#8230;. None of these variables is an obvious smoking gun, although the dosing amount seems the most likely to be a factor,&#8221; Moore said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In a statement,<\/strong>\u00a0Pfizer said it and BioNTech &#8220;expect to be able to develop and produce a tailor-made vaccine against that variant in approximately 100 days after a decision to do so, subject to regulatory approval.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s note: This story has been updated to include a statement from Pfizer.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/coronavirus-vaccines-pfizer-moderna-delta-biden-e9be4bb0-3d10-4f56-8054-5410be357070.html\">https:\/\/www.axios.com\/coronavirus-vaccines-pfizer-moderna-delta-biden-e9be4bb0-3d10-4f56-8054-5410be357070.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New data on coronavirus vaccine effectiveness may be &#8220;a wakeup call&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}