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Some volunteers who have participated in clinical trials for Pfizer and BioNTech’s new coronavirus vaccine seem to know more about the studies than they should. They told the media they had side effects, which would mean they received a real vaccine and not just a placebo. However, at this stage of testing, they shouldn’t know if that’s really the case.
Of the nearly 44,000 volunteers from six states in the United States, many found that they compared the vaccine’s side effects to a “severe monkey,” a condition people have after drinking too much alcohol. According to the Independent, for example, it was Glen Deshields, a 44-year-old from Austin, Texas.
Another volunteer, a 45-year-old Missouri woman who identified herself as Carrie, said she had a fever, headache, and body aches after the first injection. According to her, everything got worse after the second injection.
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It is still unclear whether these are really vaccine side effects, as volunteers should not have such information at this stage of the test. At the same time, there are still questions as to whether the vaccine will be effective for older people or other ethnicities and how long we will be immune to it.
Russian counter
On the same day Pfizer and BioNTech announced their vaccine was 90% effective based on test results, Russia reported that their COVID-19 vaccine could be up to 92% effective.
The Moscow National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, which developed a vaccine called Sputnik V, tested 16,000 volunteers. However, several scientists say these reports are premature, as clinical trials of the Russian vaccine are not yet at the American stage.
Although the Sputnik data are based on fewer vaccinated people and fewer positive cases, they confirm promising results. The third phase of the clinical trial is being tested in Belarus, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and India. According to Russian scientists, it wasn’t there “No unexpected adverse events“.
The three greatest hopes
Vaccines against the novel coronavirus are being developed by hundreds of laboratories around the world, a dozen of which are in the final stages of testing. Certainly the most promising are the Sputnik V vaccines, those from Pfizer and BioNtech, as well as the Oxford vaccines. There are also significant differences between them.
The Pfizer vaccine injects part of the virus’s genetic code to train the immune system. The other two use a harmless virus that has been genetically engineered to resemble a coronavirus. All of them require two doses, but the advantage of Sputnik is that it doesn’t need to be stored down to -80 degrees Celsius.
However, we must not forget what the goal of vaccine development is. “This is not a competition. We need all testing to be performed to the highest possible standards,“Said Professor Eleanor Riley of the University of Edinburgh.
According to them, Russian scientists are registering applications for vaccine supply totaling over 1.2 billion doses from more than 50 countries around the world. They claim to be able to produce 500 million batches every year.
COVID-19 will never completely disappear
The famous Italian scientist Giuseppe Remuzzi of the Negri Pharmacological Research Institute in Milan also points out that the vaccine will not completely eliminate the disease. Any COVID-19 vaccine will still be “more like a flu shot than a polio vaccine“.
Remuzzi expects the world population to receive one or more vaccines, which means humanity will be largely immunized within a few years, but also “Only on condition that the current measures are respected“Including wearing masks, social distancing and washing hands often.
According to an Italian expert, COVID-19 will be just as common in the future “Like a cold”. But at the same time Remuzzi said it existed “Too many variables“, And therefore the future development of the pandemic is “Impossible to predict“.
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