I feel most companies erred by pursuing protection against symptomatic #COVID19 as the primary efficacy outcome in vaccine trials. The confusing range of percentages across different #vaccines has adversely impacted public confidence in them.

Instead, the primary outcome should have been moderate-to-severe/fatal COVID-19. #johnsonandjohnson showed that this would have been a viable trial design and certainly adequately powered to explore protection against symptomatic COVID-19 as a secondary outcome of interest.

This would have sent the public a clear message that the vaccines are first and foremost about SAVING LIVES. My gut feeling is that the vaccine-induced protection against severe COVID-19 will also hold up reasonably well against variants.

A top line finding that #COVID19vaccines consistently protect against death and debilitating disease is a powerful incentive to get the jab (rather than the current mishmash of percentages)

Lesson learned for the next novel infectious disease with a significant proportion of severe infection: the hypothesis is that vaccines save lives do studies to prove that hypothesis