Do Covid Vaccines Prevent Infections? Dr. Norman Swan

by | Coronavirus - COVID-19

All three Covid-19 vaccines available in Australia at the moment are equally effective at preventing hospitalisation, ICU admissions, and death. The three vaccines are Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer

They are very good at that. Where they differ in effectiveness is their ability to prevent infection. Pfizer and Moderna are slightly better than AstraZeneca at doing that. So that’s stopping you from getting any infection at all. Astra and Moderna are approximately 80% effective at reducing your chances of you getting infected. AstraZeneca is about 67% effective.

The interesting thing that happens is that Pfizer potency declines month by month. After four months AstraZeneca starts performing better at preventing infection than Pfizer Vaccine.

We don’t know enough about Moderna vaccine yet as to what happens there. This is because Moderna is not being used quite as much internationally as Pfizer vaccine has.

Dr Norman Swan, Physician and Journalist