Massive coronavirus vaccine effort faces enormous challenges in California

“One reason why clinical trials sometimes show better results than what we see in the subsequent, real world, is that everything is done perfectly in a clinical trial,” said Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist and population health scientist at UC Irvine. … “But in the real world, the electricity goes out and some freezer turns off for an hour. People won’t get the second shot at the optimal time — and some won’t return for the second shot at all. … If that means a reduction in efficacy to, say, 80 percent, that’s still great. That’s what we were hoping for. This vaccine stuff is some of the best news we’ve had since, well, ever.”