Science By News Cycle Is Not Settled Science.

JustHoldOnAMinute

NowVille

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Update: Friday Feb 26th...A direct assessment of asymptomatic subject strongly suggests one dose of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine strongly suppresses viral transmission...Details here.

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This being Sunday and all, you may have not yet seen or heard the big 'news' from Israel.

Which is that the Pfizer mRNA vaccine is, apparently, according to news reports, ~90% effective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Why is this a big deal and something you're almost surely very likely to hear about by the end of the news cycle (i.e. by tomorrow morning)?

Because we're talking about stopping viral spread here, in addition to preventing or curtailing serious illness after viral infection.

One of the first reports (although there are others) of this 'finding' is from Naomi Kresge and Jason Gale at Bloomberg.

Here is their lede:

The Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE Covid-19 vaccine appeared to stop the vast majority of recipients in Israel becoming infected, providing the first real-world indication that the immunization will curb transmission of the coronavirus.

The vaccine, which was rolled out in a national immunization program that began Dec. 20, was 89.4% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed infections, according to a copy of a draft publication that was posted on Twitter and confirmed by a person familiar with the work. The companies and Israel’s Health Ministry worked together on the preliminary observational analysis, which has not yet been peer-reviewed...


Now, that last bit about how the 'draft publication' has not been peer reviewed is a red flag, especially given that reporters Kresge and Gale do not appear to have, based on what is in their report at least, spoken to a field-specific expert who has read the draft publication carefully and made a call one way or the other about whether the conclusions made are supported by the data presented (which is, essentially, what peer reviewers do). 

Luckily Eric Topol, the guy from Scripps who helped demonstrate how prevalent asympomatic viral infections are, has identified such an expert who has read the draft carefully.

To put it mildly that expert, who is a faculty member at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, is concerned that the conclusions made, which are now being trumpeted loudly in the public prints, are an overstatement:

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So.

What is Dr. McLaren's issue with the 'draft publication'?

Well, she is concerned with the fact that testing rates differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated people in Israel. As such, she is further concerned that the 'observed' differences in infections between the two groups are not the same as the 'actual' differences. Importantly, the authors of the 'draft publication'/pre-print itself also note this problem:

Thus, the issue that Dr. McLaren has with the draft and, especially the media trumpets, is not whether or not the vaccine helps prevent viral spread but instead what the actual efficacy number is.

OK?

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This thing gets even more bizarre in that the 'draft publication' is not sitting on a pre-print server for all to see as is the usual way that authors try to get comment/feedback prior to publication...Instead, it was 'leaked' to Israeli journalist Edav Eyal who then posted it, via screenshot, on the Twittmachine. 

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