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Comment by thomond | Hacker News Reader

"gild the lily" = try to improve what is already beautiful or excellent.

70% efficacy at 2c-8c storage for $4 is indeed excellent but many comments here go to "but modena is 95% efficacy whyyyy" and "they're underselling it"

They also tried 2 different dose regimens, one of which had 90% efficacy. The 70% figure is the weighted mean of the two I think.

I would far rather we report 70% and find its more effective than we report is up to 90% effective but in field deployment find its less. A 70% vaccine at wide scale release can keep R under 1.0

1/5th the price, and no need for freezers. This vaccine is huge. I pray for more like this.

I would far rather we report with just the tiniest bit of nuance. They did distinct variations for a reason. Nobody is reporting all the other approaches that were less favourable.

"I would far rather we report 70%"

That makes no sense since there are no tested regimes with 70% effectiveness. The reporting should say there is a vaccine regime with 90% effectiveness, and add a footnote that another regime that will not be used had a far lower rate of effectiveness.

There is nothing on offer here with 70% effectiveness. There is a vaccine regime with 90% effectiveness. That's more than sufficient to be effective at ending the pandemic.

Thee's another regime that we can all just forget about because it uses the same vaccine but with a different method of delivery that will be discarded in favor of the method proven far more effective. Averaging the two makes no sense.

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