Ongoing trial shows Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine remains highly effective after six months

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(CNN) The ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of Pfizer/BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine confirms its protection remains high for at least six months after the second dose, the companies said Thursday.

Protection likely lasts even longer than that, vaccine experts say, but they say having data showing good protection six months after people were vaccinated is good news.

The vaccine remains more than 91% effective against disease with any symptoms for six months, the companies said in a statement. And it appeared to be fully effective against the worrying B.1.351 variant of the virus, which is the dominant strain circulating in South Africa and which researchers feared had evolved to evade the protection of vaccines, the companies said.

"The vaccine was 100% effective against severe disease as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and 95.3% effective against severe COVID-19 as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)," Pfizer and BioNTech said in a joint statement.

The findings indicate protection will last even longer than six months, vaccine experts said.

Rshackleford22 on April 1st, 2021 at 13:57 UTC »

It's only 6 months cuz they only really have that many months worth of data. As time goes on this number should continue to rise

FuguSandwich on April 1st, 2021 at 11:55 UTC »

Hopefully "at least 6 months" turns out to be "over a year" once we have more data.

uphillinthesnow on April 1st, 2021 at 11:30 UTC »

Are they testing the people who were part of the initial trials last year? Are we going to expect to need this shot annually?