Foreign Affairs

Pfizer Says Its Vaccine Significantly Halts COVID-19’s Spread, Effective Against UK Variant

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Pfizer said Wednesday that real-world data suggests its coronavirus vaccine is 94% effective in halting asymptomatic infections and effective against a highly transmissible variant first discovered in the United Kingdom.

Israeli analysis of vaccine distribution shows the vaccine being over 97% effective in preventing symptomatic cases and death, higher than the 90% efficiency that was reported in the vaccine’s Phase III trials, Pfizer said in a press release Thursday. Over 80% of the tested specimens were against the UK variant known as B.1.1.7.

Israel continues to set the pace for vaccinations across the world. Over nine million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have already been given in Israel, and over 45% of the population have received at least one dose, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Unvaccinated individuals were 44 times more likely to develop symptoms from COVID-19 and 29 times more likely to die from the virus, according to Pfizer’s analysis. The data was collected from Jan. 17 to Mar. 6, and has not yet been peer reviewed.

Pfizer’s vaccine in December became the first of three approved for use in the United States, followed shortly after by Moderna’s candidate and in the single-shot treatment from Johnson & Johnson in February.

Nearly 96 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered across the United States so far, according to the CDC.