3 ms·

A friend of mine (who is a nutjob), said a few months ago that even if the vaccine doesn't work, they can say it would work 80-90%, because that's the amount of

• TulliusCicero 6y ago
  > because that's the amount of people who don't show symptoms anyway. I don't think this is accurate. A large majority of people show no or relatively mild symptoms comparable to a seasonal flu or cold, yes, but that's not the same thing as no symptoms at all for a large majority.
• rsynnott 6y ago
  Essentially no vaccines are 100% effective, and 90% is actually much better than expected for covid vaccines. The people in the trial are being actively tested, so symptoms are largely irrelevant. To be clear, these trials work by giving the vaccine to a bunch of people and seeing how many catch COVID. They're not challenge trials, where people are deliberately infected; your friend's conspiracy theory could kind of work with those (assuming that for some reason not everyone in the group was being regularly tested).
• krajzeg 6y ago
  The number in this specific trial is a 90% reduction in cases when comparing a vaccinated group to an unvaccinated one. So, if for example 10% of the unvaccinated got COVID in the trial timeframe, 90% effectiveness would mean only 1% of the vaccinated people did. So no, they can't do what you described.
• thehappypm 6y ago
  The 90% is more like this. You have a twin who lives exactly the same life as you. You get vaccinated but anti-vax Andy doesn't. Andy is 10x more likely to get Covid than you are now.