The Chinese vaccine is cheaper and easier to use. Is a 50% success rate acceptable ? Is it better than no vaccine at all ?

Chinese Covid-19 Vaccine Far Less Effective Than Initially Touted in Brazil
Results of Sinovac’s shot were almost 30 percentage points lower than previously announced, as concerns grow over study’s transparency
Updated Jan. 12, 2021 8:10 pm ET

SÃO PAULO—China’s effort to boost its image by providing Covid-19 vaccines to the developing world suffered a setback after one of its leading inoculation candidates turned out to be 50% effective in late-stage trials in Brazil, significantly lower than earlier results showed.

While Sinovac’s CoronaVac efficacy rate still meets the 50% threshold the World Health Organization considers good enough for widespread use, scientists said a lack of transparency about the data risks damaging the credibility of a vaccine Brazilians and others world-wide are already reluctant to take.

Brazil’s Butantan Institute, a São Paulo-based public institute that is the first to complete late-stage trials of the CoronaVac vaccine, had said last week that it was shown to be 78% effective and offer total protection against severe cases of the disease.

But after rising pressure from Brazilian scientists, some of whom accused the trial’s organizers of misleading the public, Butantan said Tuesday those rates only included volunteers who suffered mild to severe cases of Covid-19. When data from all volunteers was considered—including those who contracted “very mild” cases of Covid-19 and required no medical assistance—the total efficacy rate fell to 50.4%, Butantan said.

Sinovac didn’t respond to requests for comment.

From Latin America to Africa and Asia, many developing countries have pinned their hopes on CoronaVac and other Chinese vaccine candidates as richer nations snap up inoculations developed in the West. CoronaVac can be stored in an ordinary refrigerator, making it cheaper and easier to transport than others that require subfreezing storage temperatures.

“This will have profound implications domestically [in China] and internationally,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “From the very beginning, China has raised people’s expectations about the effectiveness of China-made vaccines.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-sin ... 1610470581

Crappy as most of the products coming from China, no surprises there. On the bright side, it makes the questionable vaccine that AstraZeneca has produced look good.