The Biden administration and government agencies continue to push Pfizer’s COVID-19 emergency use authorization product, Paxlovid, even with insufficient new trial data showing effectiveness in the current population.
Pfizer’s initial clinical trial for Paxlovid in 2021, which earned it an emergency use authorization (EAU) by the FDA, seemed quite promising. Results showed a relative risk reduction of progression to severe COVID-19 at 89 percent. But after the unapproved Pfizer product hit the market with its EAU in tow, real-world studies came out quite differently.
Two studies between January and March 2022, using real-population-based data, showed many different results. In the first study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases in June 2022, the risk reduction was much smaller than in the initial 2021 trial (89 percent), coming in at 46 percent.  Results from the second study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in September, showed no evidence of avoidance of severe COVID-19 in adults younger than 65….