Vedomosti: Pfizer is confident that its pill against coronavirus will “save many lives”

Pfizer, the company that created one of the vaccines against the coronavirus, claims that the pill developed by it reduces the likelihood of hospitalization or death for patients at high risk by 90%. This was reported by Vedomosti. The company’s CEO, Albert Burla, hopes that the approval of this drug will “save the lives of many people”, significantly reduce the burden on medical facilities and mortality, and even stop the spread of new strains of COVID-19, such as the recently identified Omicron, which is already collecting the first victims. …

Pfizer tablets were tested on a control group of 2,246 adults. They are all alive, while 12 deaths were recorded among the subjects who received the placebo.

As early as November 16, preliminary research results were reported for this drug, which, if approved, will be named “paxloid”. Then he showed similar effectiveness on a group of 1200 people.

However, not all experts share Pfizer’s optimism: in particular, according to the South China Morning Post, the vaccine created by this company (but not the pill) was 32 times less effective against the omicron strain than against the first variant of COVID-19. Scientists from the University of Hong Kong, referred to by the publication, plan to test the effectiveness of another vaccine – the Chinese Sinovac.