Pharma companies make fantastic claims about the efficacy of COVID vaccines. But, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
A peer-reviewed article in The Lancet states that claims made by pharma companies about the efficacy of COVID vaccines are completely misleading. The article reveals that vaccine efficacy has to be gauged by Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR) rather than Relative Risk Reduction (RRR) parameters. If this is done, vaccines that are hyped to have over 90 % efficacy will actually end up with these dismal efficacy numbers:
- Astra Zeneca – 1.3%
- Moderna – 1.2%
- Johnson and Johnson – 1.2%
- Pfizer – 0.84%
ARR and RRR explained
Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR) is the percentage reduction of risk due to vaccination for ALL people expected to have a serious infection/fatality due to COVID.
In other words, if 10 out of 100 people are predisposed to contracting a serious COVID infection, the absolute risk is 10%. But if after vaccination 8 out of these 100 people (8%) continue to remain at risk of contracting a severe infection, then the ARR is (10% – 8%) 2%.
To understand Relative Risk Reduction (RRR) let’s assume that a pharma company conducts a clinical study of say…two groups of 100 people. The first group doesn’t get vaccinated…as a result, 70 of its members died/had serious infections. The second group which did get vaccinated reported ‘just’ 14 deaths. The relative risk reduction is calculated as (70 deaths – 14 deaths)/70 deaths. So, the pharma company can now report an impressive RRR of 80%.
The Covishield (Oxford-Astra Zeneca’s ‘ChAdOx1’) vaccine is touted to offer over 90% protection against the virus after two doses. But recent studies show that its two-dose efficacy against the B.1.1.7 variant (first detected in the UK) is just 66.1%. And, the efficacy against the B.1.617.2 variant (first detected in India) is an abysmal 59.8%. As troubling as these statistics are, what rubs salt to the wound is that they are all Relative Risk Reduction and not Absolute Risk Reduction numbers!
Digging deeper
We have all been subjected to these manipulated numbers.
Not only are the ARR numbers extremely unattractive (and therefore unmarketable) for pharma companies, they are also extremely difficult to calculate.
So far, the virus has mutated many times and each mutation has hit different population/ethnic groups. The original iteration of the virus devastated Europe and the US, the next one mauled Brazil. The latest mutation has engulfed India.
Interestingly, each dangerous mutation has spared most other populations/countries except the one which is the most affected. After wreaking havoc in an unfortunate geography, the virus travels elsewhere in a new avatar.
Last year, when the US and Europe reported as many as 10,000 deaths a day, India was relatively better off with ‘just a few hundred a day. Even these deaths largely petered off by the end of 2020. And, remember there were no vaccines in 2020. Now the story has been entirely reversed. India regularly tops 4,000 deaths a day, while the US now records a few hundred.
So far, China has not been affected by any mutation, despite relatively lower levels of vaccination. But that is another story.
Genetics and lifestyle are proving to be extremely important to the transmission and virulence of a constantly mutating virus. This means that large groups of people across the globe must be constantly studied and administered different kinds of vaccines over a longer period to come up with more accurate Absolute Risk Reduction assessments.
The big unknowns
All our current COVID vaccines are quick fixes based on limited clinical studies. What works today may not work tomorrow. My best wishes to US citizens who can officially take off their masks after receiving their jabs. Let’s hope that these smiling faces stay that way next year.
And, what works here may not work as well, elsewhere. Staying on the US example, Pfizer and Moderna vaccines which seem to have worked a miracle in the US, are yet to be tested in Indian conditions.
All this uncertainty is the reason for booster shots to be unveiled in countries that have administered two shots to their citizens, even while others struggle to find the first or the second jab.
‘How well will the boosters work? This is a question that brings us back to the theme of this article. We just don’t know, no matter what fancy efficacy numbers by the pharma industry conjures up.
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