This syringe was used in Pfizer/BioNTech’s phase three coronavirus vaccine trial. | Photo by Dogukan Keskinkilic/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
A COVID-19 vaccine candidate was 90 percent effective at protecting people from the coronavirus, manufacturers Pfizer and BioNTech said on Monday. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) previously said it would require any vaccine to be at least 50 percent effective in order to be approved.
“If that headline really number really holds up, that is huge. That is much better than I was expecting and it will make a huge difference,” Ashish Jha, the dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, told STAT News.
The extraordinary claim is based on early data from a massive trial that’s enrolled 43,538 people so far. Pfizer and BioNTech have only released some of the data publicly in their announcement this morning, and it has not…