New vaccine demonstrates 100% efficacy against severe COVID, hospitalizations
NEW YORK -- There's some exciting news about the effectiveness of a new COVID vaccine about to be submitted for FDA authorization.
It's a vaccine that's said to provide total protection against COVID, and CBS2's Dr. Max Gomez says that's for a very specific type of COVID infection, the one was actually care most about.
The first companies to produce an effective vaccine against COVID-19 were Moderna and Pfizer, both using a new messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology. Largely forgotten in the vaccine race were numerous more conventional vaccine technologies.
Now, two doses of a new COVID vaccine that is based on a conventional approach has achieved stunning success.
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The vaccine, made by the Europe-based pharmaceutical companies Sanofi and GSK, has demonstrated 57.9% efficacy against any symptoms of COVID-19, 75% efficacy against moderate or severe COVID-19 and, most importantly, 100% efficacy against severe COVID-19 disease and hospitalizations.
"That's what we really care about. There are people who may still get mildly ill with COVID, even with this vaccine, but they will not have to stay in the hospital and they will not die," said Dr. Adam Berman, with the Northwell Health System.
Clinical trials measuring neutralizing antibody levels of the Sanofi-GSK vaccine suggests it could also be an effective booster after other COVID shots.
"The new vaccine that we're talking about now uses technology that's been around for, you know, decades. But at the end of the day, it's going to affect the immune system in a very similar way as the newer vaccines," Berman said.
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Berman also points out that because this vaccine is made with long-standing technology, perhaps people who have been skeptical of the new mRNA technology will be more willing to get vaccinated.
