Domestic vaccines are on the market, with a protection rate of 79%. Is this really "low"? Let's hear what the doctors say

After much anticipation, our domestically produced vaccine is officially on the market!

Sinopharm's inactivated vaccine is the first COVID-19 vaccine to be marketed in my country. With the release of data from the Phase III clinical trial, the protection rate of Sinopharm's vaccine was finally determined to be 79.34%. Careful friends may find that this is different from the 86% protection rate of Sinopharm UAE. So is the protection rate of Sinopharm's domestic vaccine really "low"? How effective is the domestic vaccine?

What is the protection rate of a vaccine? The protection rate of a vaccine is the percentage of people in a certain area that can be protected by the vaccine. The protection rate of a vaccine = (incidence rate of the control group - incidence rate of the vaccinated group) / incidence rate of the control group * 100%.

To give the simplest example, if 100 out of 10,000 people are infected with the new coronavirus before vaccination, and 20 out of 10,000 people are infected with the new coronavirus after vaccination, then applying the formula, the protection rate of this vaccine is (100-20)/100*100%=80%.

The protection rate of Sinopharm's marketed vaccine is based on the results of its Phase III clinical trial, and the currently published data is 79.34%.

Why is the protection rate of the Sinopharm vaccine different from the previous 86%? Because the epidemic in my country is under control so well, all Phase III clinical trials are conducted overseas. Careful friends have noticed that the protection rate announced by the UAE was 86%. Why is the protection rate of the Sinopharm vaccine launched today 79.34%?

In fact, Sinopharm has two vaccines, both of which are inactivated vaccines, developed by Wuhan Institute of Biological Products (Sinopharm) and Beijing Institute of Biological Products (Sinopharm). The Sinopharm vaccine launched today is most likely the result of the Phase III clinical trial in Argentina. They used the vaccine developed by Beijing Institute of Biological Products of Sinopharm. The Phase III clinical trial in the UAE has not been unblinded. Perhaps they used vaccines from two institutes, or only one of them. This is why the protection rate of Sinopharm's vaccine is different from the previous 86% protection rate.

Is the protection rate of Sinopharm's vaccine a bit "low"? Some people think that Sinopharm's inactivated vaccine is far inferior to the 95% protection rate of imported mRNA vaccines, and even to the 86% protection rate of the UAE, so they conclude that domestic vaccines are not good, which is very wrong.

In fact, both 79.34% and 86% are very excellent vaccines. After all, before the Phase III clinical results came out, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had planned that as long as the protection rate exceeded 50%, the vaccine would be worth marketing, and a protection rate of 79.34% is very worthy of recognition.

In addition, compared with imported mRNA vaccines, domestic vaccines are traditional inactivated vaccines, and their technology is more mature. Judging from the side effects currently announced, the serious adverse reactions of domestic vaccines are only 1 million people/2 people, which is much safer than the 160,000 people/6 people in the United States.

In general, the 79.34% protection rate is a very good figure among inactivated vaccines. In addition, the Phase III data of Sinovac is also very good. So, no matter what, from epidemic prevention and control to vaccine development and vaccination arrangements, I am proud as a Chinese.