Updated data shows that the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine is 76% effective, not 79% effective.

AstraZeneca released updated information on its clinical trial for COVID-19 Wednesday evening, which showed a 76% efficacy rate instead of the 79% rate it announced earlier in the week. The University of Oxford released provisional data from a 32,000-person trial conducted this winter in the United States, Chile and Peru, but an independent review panel that examined the results said the data was misleading, as it only contains information as of February 17. On February 17, 141 people in the trial had contracted COVID-19, the vast majority in the group that received a placebo with salt water instead of the active vaccine. Of these, the vaccine was shown to be 79% effective in preventing any symptoms of COVID-19 and 100% effective in preventing severe disease and hospitalization, and the updated information, which included 190 symptomatic cases, showed only a slightly different picture. Prevented 76% of cases of symptomatic illness two weeks after the second dose, as well as all severe illnesses and hospitalization, according to updated data, was 85% effective against symptoms of COVID-19 in volunteers aged 65 and over, according to the new data, instead of 80. % Previously reported. Eight participants in the trial developed severe COVID-19, and all of them received a dose of saline instead of an active vaccine, the company said that 14 other cases of potential or potential infection had not been fully screened yet, so the numbers may change slightly, the company also said. The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is not yet available in the United States, despite collaborators. They are expected to use their trial data for the app in a few weeks to get permission from the Food and Drug Administration. Updated numbers show the vaccine is still effective enough to meet FDA standards for efficacy. The trial also showed that the vaccine is extremely safe, despite concerns raised in Europe about more than a dozen incidents of rare blood clots among the 20 million people who were vaccinated there. European and British drug regulators and the World Health Organization have determined the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is safe, although they have not completely ruled out the possibility that the shot may have played a role in the unusual blood clotting. Ensure that blood clots are not a problem. Nothing was seen in the US trial, and it is not clear why AstraZeneca provided the data for the public, bearing in mind that it will have to present the remaining numbers after a few weeks, especially since the results were very similar. At the press conference, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s chief infectious disease physician, was asked why the company had released the previous figures, and said that AstraZeneca-Oxford had disagreed with the Independent Review Committee, officially called the Data and Safety Monitoring Board, over which numbers should be released. . The National Institutes of Health issued a news release that copies company numbers. ”And on the basis of that, given that we ourselves – meaning the federal government in the form of the NIH – had issued a press release roughly reflecting what AZ had done, we then issued a very brief version in which he said we urge Strongly for AZ to return to the Data and Safety Monitoring Board to ensure that the data being released accurately reflects what the actual data was, Fauci said.At the same press conference, Andy Slavitt, the White House chief adviser for coronavirus response, said the agency was simply trying to be Transparent to help build public confidence. He said that the FDA licensing process that all vaccines must go through remains very strict. Slavit concluded, “So I would urge us not to focus on the last two days’ process, but instead to focus on What really matters, is what happens when these applications are made for these candidates to the Food and Drug Administration. ”Contact Karen Weintraub at [email protected] Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part through Grant from the Massimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation, and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.