COVID VACCINATIONS

[Shcldavies]

I don't like not understanding things (there is a lot I don't like) and when the Scottish and English trials into the efficiency of the Pfizer and Oxford vaccines show the Oxford one to be slightly more effective in practice, I wondered why the original tests before they were approved showed the Pfizer vaccine significantly more effective.

Read an interesting article yesterday that explained the original vaccine tests did not compare like for like. Pfizer accounted for those with symptoms only whilst the Oxford tested everyone (both symptomatic and asymptomatic). If this is correct and given we now know there is significant number of people that are either asymptomatic or have such mild symptoms they do not believe they have Covid, these people wouldn't have registered as having Covid using the Pfizer tests and would have registered in the Oxford tests. It appears the answer was there all the time.

[Hidden]

It makes you wonder why the vaccines weren’t compared head to head, as two arms of the same study. Hidden financial imperatives perhaps on the part of Pfizer, given that the OxfordAZ vaccine is being sold in the developing world at cost price I believe. Do you have a link to the article?

[Shcldavies in reply to Hidden]

Yes I think the drive to get public opinion and good public perception makes people forget about some significant facts, the old saying "follow the money" is much underestimated.I chanced upon the article on the internet, I will try and find it. I do remember that the author was a lady from Oxford, can't remember if she worked at one of the Oxford universities or she graduated from an Oxford university. The provenance is not absolute however it was the first time I have read anything that would answer my question. I posted this partly in hope of someone else on this site having some information to substantiate or reject the article. I have tried with no success to find such details of the tests carried out by Pfizer and Oxford.

[BobD Volunteer]

Or it could just be the everybody was too busy trying to make the vaccine and get it out to the world? Maybe best not overthink these things,

[Shcldavies in reply to BobD]

Yes they were and we must all be grateful to all the companies that worked so well to get these vaccines out so quickly, it really was an outstanding effort by them all. I do think there is something significant about the latest test results from the general population and the answer could well be the way the companies carried out the original testing.

[Hidden in reply to BobD]

I didn’t get where I am today by not overthinking things....I wish...

[Finvola]

I read a long article on this question - full of statistics and medical speak over my head. The author homed in on 'effectiveness' and 'efficacy' in stats produced by vaccine makers but I finished the article more confused than before.

[Shcldavies in reply to Finvola]

Its a different language, geared to a specific readership and can be misunderstood by us mortals. Sometimes the reports are so specialised that basic things may not get the attention they deserve. Woods and Trees!