All three vaccines available in Australia at the moment are equally effective. These are the Moderna, AstraZeneca and Pfizer Vaccines. And they are effective at preventing hospitalisation, ICU admissions and death. So, they’re very good at preventing those events.
Where they do differ is in is their ability to prevent infection. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are a bit better than the AstraZeneca vaccine . That’s in preventing you from getting any infection at all. You have 80% less chance of getting infected with AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines in the beginning. Astra is about 67% effective at the same stage.
Something interesting also happens with the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines. The Pfizer vaccine loses its potency over time and becomes less effective. As a result, after about four months, the AstraZeneca vaccine starts performing better than the Pfizer in preventing infection.
We don’t know enough about the effectiveness with the Moderna vaccine yet. Because globally the Pfizer vaccine use is more than the Moderna vaccine. Therefore this means there is too little data to study and interpret on how effective the Moderna vaccine .
Dr Norman Swan, Physician and Journalist
