Covid-19 Vaccine Efficacy: Accuracy Assessment, Comparison, and Caveats
Volume 22, Issue 1 (2024), pp. 45–55
Pub. online: 7 March 2023
Type: Statistical Data Science
Open Access
Open Access
Received
5 November 2022
5 November 2022
Accepted
5 February 2023
5 February 2023
Published
7 March 2023
7 March 2023
Abstract
Vaccine efficacy is a key index to evaluate vaccines in initial clinical trials during the development of vaccines. In particular, it plays a crucial role in authorizing Covid-19 vaccines. It has been reported that Covid-19 vaccine efficacy varies with a number of factors, including demographics of population, time after vaccine administration, and virus strains. By examining clinical trial data of three Covid-19 vaccine studies, we find that current approach to evaluating vaccines with an overall efficacy does not provide desired accuracy. It requires no time frame during which a candidate vaccine is evaluated, and is subject to misuse, resulting in potential misleading information and interpretation. In particular, we illustrate with clinical trial data that the variability of vaccine efficacy is underestimated. We demonstrate that a new method may help to address these caveats. It leads to accurate estimation of the variation of efficacy, provides useful information to define a reasonable time frame to evaluate vaccines, and avoids misuse of vaccine efficacy and misleading information.
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