One moment, the experimental COVID-19 vaccine, that of Moderna Inc. , gave extremely strong early effects on Monday, a dose of hope that the pandemic is entering a terrible new phase.
Moderna said its vaccine appears to be 94. 5% effective, based on initial knowledge from an ongoing study. A week ago, competitor Pfizer Inc. announced that its own vaccine appeared to be 90% effective, news that puts the two corporations on track to seek authorization within weeks for emergency use in the states. -United.
The effects are “surprising,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U. S. government’s leading infectious disease specialist. “The vaccines we’re talking about and the vaccines to come are soft at the end of the tunnel. “
A vaccine cannot arrive fast enough, as virus instances have exceeded 11 million in the United States this weekend (1 million of them were registered last week) and governors and mayors are stepping up restrictions before Thanksgiving. other people around the world, adding more than 246,000 in the United States.
Stocks recovered on Wall Street and around the world due to growing hope that the global economy may begin to return to normal in the coming months. Modern rose 7. 5% in the morning, while companies that benefited from the domestic economy fell, adding Zoom, Peloton and Netflix.
Both vaccines require two injections, several weeks apart. officials said they expect to have about 20 million doses of Moderna and another 20 million doses of vaccine manufactured through Pfizer and his German wife BioNTech for use until late December.
Dr. Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna, welcomed the “really vital milestone,” but said it was very reassuring to achieve similar effects from two other companies.
“This deserves to give us all hope that a vaccine will be able to prevent this pandemic and bring us back into our lives,” Hoge told The Associated Press. He added: “Not only will Modern solve problema. se will need a lot of vaccines’ to meet global demand.
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If the Food and Drug Administration authorizes the emergency use of the Modern or Pfizer candidate, it will be limited and rationed before the end of the year.
It remains to be decided who is first in line, but Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said there was hope that sufficient doses would be available until the end of January to vaccinate adults over the age of 65, who are at most Fauci said it would possibly happen until spring or summer before anyone who is not in the greatest threat and needs to be vaccinated can get one.
The National Institutes of Health helped create the vaccine that Moderna is in the process of being manufactured, and the director of NIH, Dr. Francis Collins, said that the exciting news of two “gives us great confidence in the fact that we are on our way to improving effective vaccines. “
But “we’re also in this dark moment,” he warned, and said other people can’t let their guard down for months so that doses of any FDA-approved vaccine start reaching a large portion of the population.
The Moderna vaccine is being studied in 30,000 volunteers who have won either the genuine thing or a fictitious injection. On Sunday, an independent monitoring committee tested 95 registered infections after volunteers were shot. .
Earlier this year, Fauci said he would be on a COVID-19 vaccine effective at 60%.
The test is ongoing and Moderna has stated that the coverage rate will likely replace as more COVID-19 infections are detected. Also, it’s too early to know how long coverage lasts. Both warnings also apply to the Pfizer vaccine.
But Moderna’s independent monitors reported additional and promising information: the 11 severe cases of COVID-19 worried placebo receptors and there were no significant protection issues. The main side effects were fatigue, muscle pain and pain in the injection after the dose at the moment.
Scientists who were not interested in testing were encouraged, but warned that the FDA deserves to review protection knowledge and make the decision to authorize outdoor vaccines from a study study.
“We haven’t reached the finish line yet,” said Dr. James Cutrell, an infectious disease expert at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. “If there is an impression or belief that there is only one rubber stamp, or that due diligence done to review the data can weaken public confidence.
States are already preparing for what is expected to be the largest immunization crusade in U. S. history. The blows will have to get to where they are needed first, and Pfizer’s will have to stay at extremely cold temperatures, around 94 degrees Fahrenheit. Moderna’s vaccine also begins by freezing, but the company said Monday that it can be thawed and stored in a regular refrigerator for 30 days, which eased that concern.
Beyond the United States, other governments and the World Health Organization, which aims to buy doses for poor countries, will have to decide separately whether and when vaccines deserve generalization.
“There are still many questions,” adding the duration of coverage and whether the first vaccines to emerge are paintings in both the elderly and young people, said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, WHO Chief Scientist. , as it will be vital for us to know in the long run. “
Moderna’s vaccine, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of 11 applicants on complex tests worldwide, adding 4 in mass studies in the United States. Collins noted that more American volunteers are needed for those studies.
In other parts of the world, China and Russia presented other experimental vaccines to populations before completing the final phase tests.
Modern injections and the Pfizer-BioNTech candidate are mNR vaccines, a new logo technology. They are not made with the coronavirus itself, which means that there is no chance of someone contracting it through fire, but that the vaccine consists of one piece. that causes the immune formula to recognize the enriched protein on the surface of the virus.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla tweeted that he was extremely happy with the news of Moderna and said, “Our corporations have a not unusual goal: to overcome this dreaded disease. “
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The Associated Press Department of Health and Science is supported by the Department of Scientific Education at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The AP is for all content only.