Endnotes to Study Critique

I really wish the platform would add functionality to go along with appearance

Note 1. In the Pfizer study:

A total of 43,548 participants underwent randomization, of whom 43,448 received injections: 21,720 with BNT162b2 and 21,728 with placebo. There were 8 cases of Covid-19 with onset at least 7 days after the second dose among participants assigned to receive BNT162b2 and 162 cases among those assigned to placebo.

162 divided by 21,728 = 0.74%. Presently, the lowest positivity rate in the United States is 2.2% (VT and HI) and the overall rate is about 12.5%. The U.S.-resident share of the study exceeded 80% (I infer this from 130 of 154 randomization sites being in the U.S.)

Note 2: Tghe Moderna results and methodology were nearly identical. See the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Meeting December 17, 2020

Note 3. it is generally accepted that approximately 20% of those testing positive remain asymptomatic, one can infer that over 540 completely asymptomatic infections were missed in the placebo group alone (21.728 * 12.5% *20%). Moreover, as no one in the study wants to admit that they are sick unless they feel that their life is threatened, it’s likely that very few with mild symptoms self-reported and that another approximate 2,000 cases were missed in the placebo group. So, if the actual placebo infections were 2700, and, if e.g., there were 1000 asymptomatic infections in the vaccination group, the efficacy figure would become 63%.