Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine highly effective in adolescents

The Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective in 12- to 15-year-olds, the companies announced today in a press release. None of the children who received the vaccine in a clinical trial developed COVID-19, and they all developed strong antibody responses. There were no serious side effects.

The study included 2,260 participants. Around half received the two-dose vaccine, and the other half received placebo injections. There were 18 cases of COVID-19 found in the placebo group and none in the vaccine group.

Based on the study, the vaccine was 100 percent effective in this age group. The study was small, though, so it’s difficult to say if that number will hold up in a larger group. “But obviously, it looks good for the...

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Experts are furious over the FCC’s rosy picture of broadband access

To hear the Federal Communications Commission tell it, this is a golden age for broadband access in the United States. According to a newly released report from the agency on the digital divide, the gap between rural and urban internet access has “narrowed substantially, and more Americans than ever before have access to high-speed broadband.” Between the end of 2016 and the end of 2017, the number of Americans without broadband access fell from about 26 million to about 21 million, the report found. But experts, and even some commissioners at the FCC, say the report is flawed. The data underlying it, they argue, doesn’t truly capture what broadband looks like in rural America — leaving lawmakers and government officials with a warped... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2HOPCZj

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