Haven't looked at the results in any detail, so I don't know if this is hype or not.
There is no reason to stop the trial early I’m assuming they are limited by production capacity anyway so whenever it’s done they will just launch with more doses. That being said it’s 3+ months out and will only be available to high risk folks And rich people initially
Obviously I'm armchair quarterbacking like every other asshole on the internet. Even if it were warranted by the data, I'm not sure it would make any sense to stop the trial early, since they'll apparently be at their target number within the next few weeks. I think distribution will be a mess, but the government has already paid for 100,000,000 doses, so I very much hope that (a) Pfizer showed them data to make then confident that 100M could be produced quickly, and (b) that the gov't has been considering a distribution plan. Given the past 9 months of chaos, I have little faith in either of those propositions. I wonder to what extent the defense production act can be used to make every available company start producing vaccine. Hopefully Trump can be sidelined for the next two months to make sure that he can't be disruptive to the process, whatever it turns out to be.
Just an update, I read that they are planning to submit an emergency authorization in the 3rd week of this month, which is like next week, I guess. Then they say they have the capacity to produce 30-40M doses by year's end (15-20M patients worth, since everyone needs two). Their target estimate is 1.2 billion (600M patients) per year, which obviously isn't enough for the world's appetite, so hopefully some other vaccine works out, too. Hopefully their success portends the success of others, too, since it's all the same biology.
Not likely hype; The company has been operating independently of operation Warp Speed. Except in alt-reality, of course. I was wrong, by the way, when I predicted that Trump would claim he has a vaccine in the week(s) leading up to the election. I think he managed to shift focus away from covid way better than I anticipated. Looking at new case numbers, we're in big trouble. Sadly, it's the "flyover" states, with so many Trumpkins, that are getting hit hardest right now. And Don Jr.'s right, the death rates (likelihood of death per covid case) are down significantly, because we've really upped our game with therapeutics, but that's not some sort of justification for the administration's criminally (imho) poor covid response.
If it's true that the effectiveness rate is indeed 90% then probably they should stop the trial early and apply for authorization (this happens from time-to-time in medicine, although it's pretty rare, on the theory that it's unethical to continue to withhold a lifesaving treatment from the public)). However, what I mean by hype is that we have no idea about the details as far as strength of antibodies over time, potential side effects, subgroup analyses of different age and comorbid conditions (which I'm sure they powered for). These things are really important to understanding the full picture, and I don't think it's possible to get those details until the trial is complete. I'm very optimistic, as the stock market clearly is too, but we can't stop looking with a skeptical eye by the same token.