Last month, the COVID numbers flattened, and recently they started climbing again in a dangerous path indicating that we are far from the forest. Experts believe that the growing number of cases in the US is probably due to two things: relaxed restrictions and the presence of more contagious new varieties from the UK, Brazil and South Africa. These strains add an unpredictable new element to the pandemic, which many medical professionals warn could hinder our efforts to achieve herd immunity.
Yet there are many reasons to be cautiously optimistic about the future of the pandemic, as vaccines are the most important. With three extremely effective shots on the market, we now have a way of pushing back against these new COVID variants by slowing down their distribution. And while any of the current vaccines may effective against emerging variants, only one company formally evaluated their own product and found it to be effective against these new threats. Read on to find out which vaccine has been tested, and check out Pfizer’s Vaccine Protects You for at least this lengthy study study.
A team of researchers from Pfizer and the medical branch of the University of Texas tried to answer the question of whether vaccines developed to fight older COVID variants would protect against newer strains. Finally publish their results in the New England Journal of Medicine in March, they set up a laboratory test to test antibodies in serum samples from 15 volunteers who both received the vaccine doses. Within this small sample, they found that the vaccine generates a ‘substantial’ antibody response to laboratory-produced versions of the virus variants.
Taken together, these findings suggest that this vaccine is likely to be effective against the variants being studied, although exactly how effective it is in the real world requires data on the true effect of the vaccine in populations, not just in laboratory studies such as this not. ,” reports BBC Science Focus Magazine. Further studies are likely to look at other aspects of immune response, including T-cell (cellular) immunity, they explain. And subscribe to our daily newsletter for more COVID news delivered directly to your inbox.
While Pfizer’s vaccine apparently protects against all the new variants, the study found that it is done to varying degrees, depending on the type of vaccine. The team discovered that the shot was the most protective against the original voltage and that the B.1.1.7 variant was first detected in the UK, while eliciting a slightly lower response against the P.1 variant from Brazil. The Pfizer vaccine was found to be the lowest against the B.1.351 variant first identified in South Africa.
‘Comfortable, while the levels were lower for the [Brazilian and South African] variants, it was still significant and would probably indicate that the vaccine would be effective, ” Peter Engels, MD, a consultant in the control of communicable diseases, tells Science focus. And for more information on how the Pfizer survey performs, look at The Pfizer Vaccine is 100 Percent Effective for People at This Age, says study.
As Reuters reported, on April 1, Pfizer announced a Phase 3 update of its trial data: their two-dose vaccine is now considered 91 percent effective, a slightly lower efficacy rate than previously announced.
The additional data comes from 12 000 individuals who have been vaccinated for at least six months, as well as ‘a small subset of study volunteers in South Africa’, where the B.1.351 variant is common. While this may seem obvious, it may seem like it’s hurting the results of the initial trial of 44,000 volunteers, but this news confirms that the Pfizer vaccine offers powerful protection in an increasingly complex pandemic landscape.
And for more information on how Pfizer affects patients, check out the one side effect that is much more common with Pfizer, computer programs.
Although the current Pfizer vaccine appears to offer significant protection against COVID variants, the company recently reiterated that they still expect there to be a need for both booster shots and an upgraded vaccine.
On February 25, the pharmaceutical company announced that they would begin evaluating booster shots with respect to new variants. “We want to be prepared for different scenarios,” Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, which compiled the Pfizer vaccine, said in the announcement. “Therefore, we will evaluate a second impulse in the current treatment and prepare for a possible rapid adaptation of the vaccine to address new variants that may escape the current version of our mRNA-based vaccine.” And for more information on the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine, look at the Pfizer vaccine may be less effective if you have this common condition.