Adjusted AstraZeneca Data Shows Its Coronavirus Vaccine Is Only 76% Effective
AstraZeneca released updated data on its COVID-19 vaccine, saying a more recent analysis shows the vaccine is 76 percent effective against symptomatic COVID-19. It’s a slight drop from the 79 percent the company touted in an announcement earlier this week. That number was based on outdated data, US health officials said in an unusual public statement rebuking the company.
The original efficacy was based on an interim analysis using data collected until February 17th. But adding more data collected after that date showed that the vaccine may have been 69 to 74 percent effective, according to a letter from the independent panel monitoring the clinical trial and reported by The Washington Post. The panel “strongly recommended” those numbers also be reported.
The new result is a few percentage points higher, but a finding in that range would have still been a good result and much higher than the 50 percent efficacy cutoff the US Food and Drug Administration said it wanted from COVID-19 vaccines last fall. A federal official told The Washington Post that AstraZeneca’s decision to publish only the higher number earlier this week was like “telling your mother you got an A in a course when you got an A in the first quiz but a C in the overall course.”
