A study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were 94 percent effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 among 1,843 health care workers in 25 states, providing "the most compelling information to date that COVID-19 vaccines were performing as expected in the real world," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement Friday. "This study, added to the many studies that preceded it, was pivotal to CDC changing its recommendations for those who are fully vaccinated."
More than 80 percent of the study participants were female, the median age of all participants was 37 to 38, and all of them were tested regularly. The 94 percent effectiveness rate was in line with the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials, but the study also found that one dose of the vaccine was 82 percent effective, higher than in previous studies, possibly because of the relative youth of the participants.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Antony Gormley's Time Horizon – a 'judgmental army' of 100 cast-iron menThe Week Recommends Sculptures are 'everymen questioning the privilege of their surroundings' at the Norfolk stately home
-
'King's horses take free rein through London'Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
-
Is pop music now too reliant on gossip?Talking Point Taylor Swift's new album has prompted a flurry of speculation over who she is referring to in her songs
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipseSpeed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
-
Melting polar ice is messing with global timekeepingSpeed Read Ice loss caused by climate change is slowing the Earth's rotation
-
An amphibian that produces milk?speed read Caecilians, worm-like amphibians that live underground, produce a milk-like substance for their hatchlings
-
Jupiter's Europa has less oxygen than hopedspeed read Scientists say this makes it less likely that Jupiter's moon harbors life
-
Why February 29 is a leap daySpeed Read It all started with Julius Caesar
-
US spacecraft nearing first private lunar landingSpeed Read If touchdown is successful, it will be the first U.S. mission to the moon since 1972
-
Scientists create 'meaty' rice for eco-friendly proteinSpeed Read Korean scientists have invented a new hybrid food, consisting of beef muscle and fat cells grown inside grains of rice
-
New images reveal Neptune and Uranus in different colours than originally thoughtSpeed Read Voyager 2 images from the 1980s led to 'modern misconception'
