Again, the numbers were accurate, but the study was flawed from a truly scientific one where what is truly being tested in immunity to exposure to a virus that is circulting. Because, actual EXPOSURE was being purposefully but artificially dramatically reduced.
At the time the studies were conducted, we had still partial national lock downs. People were still masking indoors, and we had social distancing policies across the board. Airlines were transporting 5% of their typical daily travelers. We had MASK mandates on public transportation and in large indoor settings. Hotels had entire floors shut-down. Universities were closed and remote learning. Schools were still practicing at home learning, not in person for much of the country. People were washing their hands frequently and often with alcohol based sanitizer. Restaurants had for the most part outdoor seating, separated by 8-10 feet of space. People were dying left and right, and the population was rightly concerned with getting infected in the absence of a good vaccine, good therapeutics or other clinical based remediations.
That is not a typical environment for vaccine testing. Typically, for flu, RSV, other virus / vaccine testing, people get a vaccination, some get a placebo and everyone goes about their lives as they normally would. Some get exposed and get sick.. some get exposed and don’t get sick. We have traditionally no real understanding of who was exposed. Clinically, there are SOME vaccine and medication trials where they vaccinated everyone AND EXPOSE them. Then we get much better actual results of efficacy. Rightly so, this was not done with covid testing.
So, it’s very hard to take the data-which again ARE VALID in their data points, and truly extrapolate that IF exposed to covid virus AND vaccinated that only 5% of people would show infection.
If we did the same sort of environmental alterations, protections, social distancing, keeping people at home and not going into an office, wearing masks on planes, only having 15 people per plane, for a regular flu season viral testing, we’d end up with similar 95% efficacy results, if not higher.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
