[Ulrich2]

The side effect of this amazing BioNTech/Pfizer success: Meanwhile AstraZeneca is clearly only the second choice. At least locally here in my town (EU) people line up for Biontech, but the vaccination centers that offer AstraZeneca report up to 50% no shows.

[teekert]

Why is that? I'm in the biotech field and I hardly get any sense of one being better than the other? Is such knowledge spread via social media? (Which I avoid)

[Ulrich2]

Unfortunately there is huge difference when it comes to the South African variant. AZ no longer works, but Pfizer does:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55975052

vs.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/question-choices-pfi...

The 2nd key reason is that no other vaccine is backed up by so much real world data as BT because of Israel. That is the very topic of this thread. That is why I thought it is self-explanatory.

[StavrosK]

I think that's because the initial announced efficacy for ModeRNA/BioNTech was 95ish%, whereas for AZ it was 75%.

[Ulrich2]

No, because AZ does not work against the SA variant of the virus, but BT does.

[The_rationalist]

I wonder when sputnik V will be legalized. In France you don't get to choose the vaccine (most of the time?) you know which one you'll receive but not in advance.

[tibu]

In Hungary you can already get the Sputnik, government accepted it. I'm not sure whether it is good or not...

[ssijak]

Sputnik has pretty much same efficacy as Pfizer. Sinopharm a bit less, but also almost no side effects.