So argues Professor Richard Peto of Oxford University
- a COVID-19 vaccine could be rushed into production too quickly
- he warns that the global health crisis could potentially worsen if the first vaccine has a low level of efficacy
- Even if it protected only a minority of the population, it would be regarded as the standard by which later vaccines would be measured. That could even lead to inferior vaccines being approved, because they would not have to show that they were any better.
Peto is a member of the WHO's Solidarity Vaccines Trial Expert Group:
- "Deployment of a weakly effective vaccine could actually worsen the Covid-19 pandemic if authorities wrongly assume it causes a substantial reduction in risk, or if vaccinated individuals wrongly believe they are immune, hence reducing implementation of, or compliance with, other Covid-19 control measures"
