Pfizer’s Covid-19 Pill is 89% Effective in Phase 2/3 Study

https://www.fdanews.com/articles/205801-pfizers-covid-19-pill-is-89-percent-effective-in-phase-23-study

by elorant • 5 years ago

107 91 5 years ago

baka367• 5 years ago

Cautiously hopeful that this does indeed work and that it does work for all variants...

.. and that it also would not cost a fortune in 3rd world where we really need easily accessible and storable countermeasures against the bugger.

beaned3• 5 years ago

The vaccines were also lauded as 100% effective in the early days by Fauci and others, so just a reminder that time and reproducibility matter before being too confident about it.

xboxnolifes2• 5 years ago

I don't recall a single instance of 100% efficacy claim. It was around 92-97%.

jmarbach4• 5 years ago

You are arguing over semantics. In reality, the Pfizer vax has proven to be less than 10% effective at stopping a future infection.

6nf2• 5 years ago

There's a well known tweet of Fauci saying 'all three vaccines are 100% effective'

vidoc4• 5 years ago

At some point there was some PR about 100% effectiveness of the product on kids, according to, the guys who actually manufacture the product :)

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

BbzzbB• 5 years ago

Can't see GP's comment (flagged, like 7/11 OP ITT) so I don't know if I'm on-topic or not. After Bourla's appearance on Lex's podcast and the latter's mention of a 100% claim on the blue bird app which the former denied (w.r.t. infection I believe), searching his account I came up with these. They're from March 31st (1) and April 1st (2 & 3, quoting 4), third would be most eye-brow lifting today. It is arguably misleading, or odd, to just mention 100% in a tweet on 95% CI with 53.5-100.0 brackets in the study.

1: 100% efficacy against COVID-19 disease for 12-15 year olds in phase 3

2: 100% efficacy against severe COVID-19 as defined by CDC

3: 100% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 cases in South Africa

[1] https://twitter.com/AlbertBourla/status/1377227340011483136

[2] https://twitter.com/AlbertBourla/status/1377586182519947264

[3] https://twitter.com/AlbertBourla/status/1377618480527257606

[4] https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...

beaned3• 5 years ago

Here you go. I don't know anything about this website (found it from a google search) but the video montage has plenty of claims of 100%, and a "virtually 100% efficacious" quote from Fauci. The montage is in a meme format making fun of the situation, which is not my preference, and I don't intend to inflame by sharing such a take, it's just the most succinct thing I found.

It highlights quite clearly what I'd mentioned in my first comment, that time and reproducibility matter. I genuinely don't know why it was flagged.

https://news.grabien.com/story-twitter-user-video-showing-sh...

junon2• 5 years ago

Show me a single claim they'd be 100% effective by an epidemiologist, please.

thisiscorrect• 5 years ago

It will be interesting to see if this pill could be used as prophylaxis too, instead of only after the onset of symptoms. Might help with the need to recognize symptoms fairly early on.

JanSt• 5 years ago

$500-700 per 5 day course and very limited supply (<100m courses in 2022 planned)

JohnTHaller• 5 years ago

This will be useful for the hundreds of thousands of organ transplant recipients like my Dad. The two dose vaccines generally have no effect. Didn't with him or any of the other patients under his doctor's care. Luckily, he was part of the ~40% where the 3rd dose had some effect. Nowhere near healthy folks but at least some. For the other 60%, a drug like this will be life-saving.

pokstad• 5 years ago

Does this mean COVID is over? I thought once the vaccines were available we could move on with life, but somehow the goal posts kept moving. Will people accept the much smaller risk of hospitalization once this pill is available?

joe_guy• 5 years ago

but somehow the goal posts kept moving.

The virus changes, so the end conditions change. It's frustrating but it is what it is.

epgui11• 5 years ago

The goal posts do keep moving, because vaccination uptake is slow, people keep arguing against public health measures, and while we waste time delaying measures or implementing half baked measures, the virus evolves.

650• 5 years ago

Look at BC Canada, 90% vaccine uptake (2 doses). Very strong public masking. Vax passport checking at most businesses. More restrictions recently introduced. Hospitals on the verge of being overwhelmed.

refurb11• 5 years ago

Nope. In countries that have vaccination rates and strict compliance to measure the cases keep going up.

The goalposts move because the experts were wrong.

disambiguation3• 5 years ago

Are you suggesting if everyone was vaccinated we wouldn't have variants at all? Or is there some other measure that can prevent variants? I'm not familiar with a public health policy that can do that.

vmception• 5 years ago

The goal posts change because the variables change while the prior post is never met.

In my world, everyone that could segregate from vulnerable populations already has and vice versa. They moved, and go out with everyone else that wont go home to an immunocompromised or prediabetic or elderly person.

Multiday 300,000+ attendee music festivals have occurred in major US markets without making the news as reckless and welcomed by all levels of government at the time.

Commonwealth countries and major markets in Europe seem to be less tolerant to the idea of governing, I mean a lower threshold to infection to justify continued restrictions.

Many of their citizens are coming to the US if they can, as well.

US is still doing way worse with infections, deaths, ICU capacity, but its a two tiered reality. And as long as emergency services remain available for everyone else I think thats a good enough bar for people to make their own decisions - which is an opinion matched by even the most restrictive major municipalities in the US, for some time. Remote work has been normalized enough for enough people/office jobs to not require a compromise to stay home.

fivea2• 5 years ago

Does this mean COVID is over?

When I took my first jab, the local clinic handed out a flier explaining in no uncertain terms that:

a) the current batch of vaccines work by giving our immune system a workout to be able to experience a COVID infection as either totally unnoticed or at most a mild case,

b) the current batch of vaccines does not nor did ever guaranteed you won't contract and spread COVID,

c) even with all shots we still need to practice basic higiene and health precautions like wearing a mask, wash hands, and social distance.

We're talking about pre-Delta times. This has been widely known from the start.

How come antivaxxers are the only ones repeating cynical comments on how the initial batch of vaccines, which we all are lucky to have but are still at the level of being better than nothing, would be a silver bullet?

Ajedi32• 5 years ago

the current batch of vaccines does not nor did ever guaranteed you won't contract and spread COVID

Guarantee, no. But the thought was that it would greatly reduce the risk of spreading the disease, such that once a sufficient number of people were vaccinated herd immunity would kill off the virus and end the pandemic. We're now two years in with a 73% vaccination rate in the US (not counting those with natural immunity), with even higher rates elsewhere; still no end in sight.

If vaccines aren't going to end the pandemic, then something else needs to. Will a pill that reduces the lethality of the disease by 89% be enough that we can finally put this to rest and go back to normal? If not that, then what?

refurb11• 5 years ago

That’s not what was messaged to the general public from our leaders. The narrative went from “the vaccinated cant get infected” to “the vaccinated won’t really transmit it”, so “its clearly the unvaccinated who are the problem” to “well it turns out vaccinated people can get and transmit Covid just as well as unvaccinated”.

And if vaccines wouldnt “end” Covid why so much discussion on R values and “herd immunity”. The messaging around that went silent pretty quickly when it was clear that wasn’t happening with Covid.

And the only reason the narrative changed is because it was plainly obvious to the general public things weren’t going as planned.

But I get it, you cant predict how a new infectious disease will pan out, but holy shit has the PR messaging ever been terrible.

But then I wonder if that was intentional? Would the public ever have gone along with all this if the government was honest and said “we’ll continue to have restrictions for the next 5 years”?

ohiovr• 5 years ago

Sure are a lot of missing comments here. It seems hardcore leftists love diversity in everything except diversity of opinions. Ah this place is basically group think extreme. More interesting than Reddit usually but just as hostile to debate about subjects that go against the TV gods or popular culture. Basically the internet is becoming little clicks of people that dare not even speak up for fear of losing more than something like posting privileges to a website. You think this issue is not political? It has been politics from the very first minute we saw it on TV.

tommit• 5 years ago

What are you on about? And how is this comment at all contributing to a healthy discussion?

stunt• 5 years ago

It doesn't help that public is too sensitive about this subject. Government can't scrutinize companies like Pfizer enough if they are worried about public reaction. And I'm not too surprised if some companies rush since a lot of money is on the table.

To be fair, this is the best effort we have ever had to develop a vaccine. So I don't think it's fair to blame these companies if their vaccine wasn't effective on new variants as they initially promised. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't thoroughly scrutinize them.

throwoutway2• 5 years ago

So I don't think it's fair to blame these companies if their vaccine wasn't effective on new variants as they initially promised. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't thoroughly scrutinize them.

It depends. On example: If they hid data that propped up their number, then we should blame. Otherwise we should not blame them. Either way, there needs to be scrutiny so that they don’t feel they can easily hide things that matter to public health

Pfizer’s Covid-19 Pill is 89% Effective in Phase 2/3 Study

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