We are familiar with these terms from the COVID vaccines. In triathlon it is quite similar. Training heroes are not the winners in a competition; and vice versa, champions perform much better in a competition. Let’s take a look at the vaccines now that we have new information. Perhaps the post should be called: “Covid 19 effectiveness in Israel.” I was tempted to put such a title, but I want to make a correlation with triathlon.
We have data from the Pfizer
clinical trials related to Covid 19 vaccine.
Bozena Riedel-Baima1,MD; Roman Zielinski2,PhD;
Kornelia Polok2,PhD
Table 3. Group III: cases between the first and second dose
|
|
BNT162b2 |
Placebo |
|
Cases |
39 |
82 |
|
Participants |
21669 |
21686 |
|
AR |
0.0018=0.18% |
0.0038=0.38% |
|
ARR |
0.38%-0.18%
= 0.2% |
|
|
NNT |
100:
0.2=500 |
500 people
must be vaccinated in order to protect 1 person from developing
symptoms of COVID-19 |
|
RR |
0.0018:
0.0038= 0.474 |
|
|
RRR=efficacy |
1-0.474=
0.526= 52.6%= 53% |
|
The data from Israel is
the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo9htB_kXxA
More than 180,000 people inoculated and PCR tested after first dose represented the cohort. 6.6% (more than 12,000) became PCR positive after the first dose, compared to 0.18% in the clinical trials. In simple terms, the clinical trials represent the efficacy of the vaccine and the Israel experience the effectiveness. It does not say much about mortality which apparently decreased in Israel after vaccination. What we have learned from the experience and the questions that followed are below.
1) Measures
were not followed after the vaccination: distance between person to person, use
of masks and avoiding gatherings.
2) Measures
could be more effective than the vaccines to stop the propagation of the virus. Measures were in place before the vaccine and
when clinical trial were done.
3) Due to
the degree of people infected after the first dose, the mortality in number of
people per 100,000 citizens does not change much.
There are many hard working
people in the world but very few aspire to be champions. The problem of efficacy vs effectiveness is
there. Effectiveness has to do with the
mental preparation and the mental work we put into. The discipline to keep our way of thinking, believing
in what we have to believe in order to have an edge, i.e. Mohamed Ali would
believe that he was the greatest. When
somebody is born with privileges, he/she does not have to believe like Mohamed. The mental work is the most important job in
underserved environment to overcome it.
Effectiveness is a mental work that starts with administrating our time
and efforts after looking carefully at the data available.
