As I see it | With coronavirus vaccines, trust is in the clinical trial details
- In the rush to release data, developers need to be able to answer questions from the public and the scientific community
- The efficacy rate is the focus of much attention and the numbers must add up
They have rushed their findings out on preprint servers because information about the virus is urgently needed.
The preprints come with caveats, with scientists cautioning that such papers should not be treated as peer-reviewed findings.
Due to pressure to roll out vaccines as quickly as possible, manufacturers have gone public as soon as they have had enough cases for an interim or final analysis of efficacy.
In these releases, the media and the public usually focus on the efficacy rate, an important indicator of whether the benefits of inoculation are greater than the risks.
Regulators will, of course, ask for detailed data – and no doubt receive it eventually. But the scientific community and the public also want to know more than what is in the press releases.
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