1/ The @NEJM paper on the @pfizer vaccine has worrying details. The authors note "serious adverse events" are similar in vaccine (0.6%) and placebo (0.5%); they admit only in an appendix that the rate of "severe adverse events" was far higher in the vaccine arm (1.1% to 0.6%)...

2/ The vaccine needs two shots to work - after 1 shot, its effectiveness is about 50% (39 cases in the vaccine arm, 82 in placebo); but the second dose worsens side effects. Notably, almost 1 percent of people had a 102-104 degree fever in the vaccine arm after the second dose...

3/ In general, the number of people with severe allergic reactions to the vaccine is strikingly high - especially in younger people, who are of course at far lower risk from #Covid...

4/ Finally - and this is just ugly and misleading by the authors - the fact that nine patients in the placebo arm and only one in the vaccine developed "severe" Covid received lots of attention. But the patient who developed Covid in the vaccine arm did so after BOTH doses...

5/ Looking at the group of people who received both doses, only 4 people in the placebo arm developed severe Covid, compared 1 in the vaccine arm. Which is fine.

BUT THE INVESTIGATORS DIDN'T REPORT THE FIGURES THAT WAY FOR PEOPLE WHO DEVELOPED COVID THAT WASN'T SEVERE...

6/ They presented the 162-8 ratio for the non-severe group, NOT COUNTING PEOPLE WHO DEVELOPED COVID AFTER ONLY ONE DOSE.

BUT FOR THE SEVERE GROUP THEY WENT WITH PEOPLE WHO HAD EITHER ONE OR TWO DOSES.

Pick a side. Don't present the data in the way you think looks better.

Sorry if this is confusing. What I mean is, if they wanted to report severe Covid cases at 9-1, for consistency's sake they should have gone with a topline figure of 244-47 for all cases. That's still strongly in favor of the vaccine, obviously, but it isn't as eye-popping.