Israel’s Ministry of Health and Pfizer/BioNTech announced Thursday that the Pfizer vaccine can prevent symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19, ABC News reports.
- This means the vaccine prevents people from spreading COVID-19 even when they’re asymptomatic, which has been one of the dangerous ways the coronavirus has spread throughout the world.
- The data reportedly showed the Pfizer vaccine is 94% effective in stopping the asymptomatic spread and infection, according to ABC News.
The researchers said the Pfizer vaccine is 97% effective in stopping the symptomatic spread, which is close to the 95% number Pfizer originally announced, as I wrote about for the Deseret News.
Why this matters
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC this could cut down on the coronavirus spread by significant numbers.
- “This is extremely important ... for society,” Bourla told CNBC. “The asymptomatic carriers and patients are the ones spreading the disease mainly. We were expecting something good in terms of symptomatic,” he said.
- Bourla said he did not expect to see such a “high number” against asymptomatic cases.
One more thing ...
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The researchers said 80% of the cases were from the U.K. variant B.1.1.7, which is a sign that the Pfizer vaccine can be effective against that variant, ABC News reports.