Weren't the COVID vaccines rushed?
Here is what the checked sources say. Each title links to the original.
Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine
The Pfizer-BioNTech licensing trial, funded and largely written by the two companies, randomly assigned 43,548 people aged 16 and over to vaccine or placebo in 2020. Lab-confirmed COVID-19 starting at least 7 days after the second dose occurred in 8 vaccinated people versus 162 on placebo: 95% relative efficacy against illness during the trial. Side effects were mostly short-term injection-site pain, tiredness and headache; serious adverse events were similar in both groups. Safety follow-up was a median of about 2 months.
Efficacy and Safety of the mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine
The Moderna licensing trial, co-authored by Moderna employees and NIH and university researchers, randomly assigned 30,420 volunteers at 99 US sites in 2020 to vaccine or placebo. Symptomatic COVID-19 starting at least 14 days after the second dose, in people not previously infected, occurred in 11 vaccinated people versus 185 on placebo: 94.1% relative efficacy during the trial. All 30 severe cases, including one death, were in the placebo group. Temporary side effects were more common with vaccine; serious adverse events were rare and similar in both groups.
Safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine in a Nationwide Setting
A post-rollout study by Israel's largest health system and Harvard researchers, noting that pre-approval trials were limited in size and patient mix. About 885,000 vaccinated people were each matched to an unvaccinated person and followed 42 days. The Pfizer vaccine was not associated with most adverse events studied, but was associated with excess myocarditis (about 2.7 per 100,000, 95% CI 1.0 to 4.6), swollen lymph nodes, appendicitis and shingles. In a separate analysis, COVID-19 infection was associated with about 11 excess myocarditis cases per 100,000, plus clots and heart attacks.
Mortality risk after COVID-19 vaccination: A self-controlled case series study
A post-rollout study, with authors reporting no competing interests, of all deaths from December 2020 to August 2021 at eight US Vaccine Safety Datalink health systems. Each person's death risk in the 14 or 28 days after a dose was compared with other times, adjusting for season. For Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, it did not find an increased risk of non-COVID death, death from any cause, or four kinds of cardiac-related death in those windows; the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson estimates were less precise.
Fast Development of High-Quality Vaccines in a Pandemic
Explains the speed. The mRNA idea was over 30 years old and existing platforms were ready; the virus sequence was published on January 11, 2020. Research and early trials ran at the same time instead of one after another, and manufacturing began before final results, as a US government program put over $12 billion into five vaccine candidates. High COVID-19 spread during trials meant results came sooner. The authors' view is that the vaccines were developed in record time without compromising scientific integrity.
Were the COVID-19 vaccines rushed? Here's how the vaccines were developed so fast
A plain-language explainer from a hospital system, giving its reasons for the speed. Nebraska Medicine says scientists had studied coronaviruses for about 50 years and already knew the spike protein was a good target, and mRNA vaccine platforms had been in development for over 10 years. It says trial networks built for HIV vaccine research sped up enrollment, factories were built before approval, some trial phases overlapped, and the FDA compressed its review to weeks using parallel teams working nights and weekends.