Heres Why COVID-19 Vaccine Trials Cannot Tell Us If Vaccines Will Save Lives

None of the current COVID-19 vaccine trials are designed to detect a reduction in any serious outcome such as hospitalisations, intensive care use, or deaths. Here's why COVID-19 vaccine trials cannot tell us if the vaccines will save lives.

Vaccines are being hailed as the solution to the covid-19 pandemic, but the vaccine trials are not designed to tell us if they will save lives, reports Peter Doshi, Associate Editor at The BMJ (read full report below).

Many may assume that successful phase 3 studies mean we have a proven way of keeping people from getting very sick and dying from covid-19. And a robust way to interrupt viral transmission.

Yet the phase 3 trials are not actually set up to prove either, says Doshi. 

“None of the trials currently underway are designed to detect a reduction in any serious outcome such as hospitalisations, intensive care use, or deaths. Nor are the vaccines being studied to determine whether they can interrupt transmissio...

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