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A comment on Pfizer and BioNTech Conclude Phase 3 Study of Covid-19 Vaccine Candidate. Parent comment

Re:Pfizer and BioNTech Conclude Phase 3 Study of Covid-19 Va... by tgb on Wednesday November 18, 2020 @09:02AM (#25136803)
Is NNT a good number to use when evaluating effectiveness of vaccines during a pandemic? It'll change substantially over time as the virus waxes and wanes and from location to location. So it won't be comparable across different vaccines. Moreover, the fact that cases create more cases means that preventing 1 case could prevent other future ones.
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Re:Pfizer and BioNTech Conclude Phase 3 Study of Covid-19 Va... by virtuallynathan on Wednesday November 18, 2020 @09:05AM (#25136841)
I would agree, it probably not a good metric. Just providing some standard numbers for treatments.

Keep in mind the definition of a case here is having symptoms, so we don’t know if the vaccine prevents lightly symptomatic or asymptomatic cases, which may or may not result in transmission.

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Re:Pfizer and BioNTech Conclude Phase 3 Study of Covid-19 Va... by jrumbut on Wednesday November 18, 2020 @10:08AM (#25137554)
I've seen this NNT argument a few places now, and no it doesn't make any sense because most of us will be living in a society for years and years to come so if we resume normal life at some point and it's out there we all will be exposed at some point.

Its current prevalence is irrelevant because if we live how we want to live it will be everywhere (assuming no vaccine).

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