The development of anti-Covid vaccines has forced countries to make swift decisions about which ones to go for – choices that are based more on availability than absolute knowledge of their efficacy. But now concerns are being raised that some of these potential life-savers might not be as effective as we have been led to expect. As more details emerge of the research findings behind several of the new coronavirus vaccines, the suspicion is dawning that those choices are creating a lottery in which there might be winners and losers. For example, Saudi Arabia, which began inoculating its population on December 17, was the first country in the Arab world to deploy the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, now widely used in Europe and the US. Meanwhile, its neighbor, the UAE, signed up to the vaccine developed by the Chinese state-owned company Sinopharm, and has been administering it since December 14. In Dubai residents can choose either one. Public attention has been drawn to the relative “efficacy” of the various vaccines by news of trials in Brazil of another Chinese-made vaccine, developed by Beijing company Sinovac and adopted by countries including Turkey and…
Analysis: The Difference Between Covid Vaccines’ ‘Efficacy’ and ‘Effectiveness’
February 18, 2021
