Monday morning, some encouraging news broke regarding a COVID-19 vaccine as the United States continues to be ravaged by the virus as the number of deaths has now reached 238,000 while cases have eclipsed 10 million.
According to the New York Times, drugmaker Pfizer has announced that early COVID-19 vaccine trials have returned an over 90 percent effective rate which is on par with early childhood vaccines like measles.
The drug maker Pfizer announced on Monday that an early analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trial suggested the vaccine was robustly effective in preventing Covid-19, a promising development as the world has waited anxiously for any positive news about a pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people.
Pfizer, which developed the vaccine with the German drugmaker BioNTech, released only sparse details from its clinical trial, based on the first formal review of the data by an outside panel of experts.
The company said that the analysis found that the vaccine was more than 90 percent effective in preventing the disease among trial volunteers who had no evidence of prior coronavirus infection. If the results hold up, that level of protection would put it on par with highly effective childhood vaccines for diseases such as measles. No serious safety concerns have been observed, the company said.
New York Times
There are currently 11 COVID-19 vaccines worldwide in late-stage trials with four of the 11 being developed in the U.S. Likewise, Pfizer’s early results could also be good news for Moderna’s development in their own vaccine since similar biotechnologies are being used. Nonetheless, Moderna said their results could be released later in the month.
Although none of the results are conclusive, scientists have been surprised by the early returns while the trial is expected to continue until 164 people in the 44,000 person trial develop COVID-19 symptoms. So far there haven’t been any serious side effects while there haven’t been any long-term conclusions drawn. Furthermore, it hasn’t been determined what the long-term effectiveness against the virus would be or if this would something people would need to get on a yearly basis similar to that of the flu vaccine. What is known right now though is that the Pfizer vaccine would come in a series of two dosages with effectiveness against the virus coming around seven days after the second shot had been administered.
When it comes to cost and rollout, we may be looking at the spring of 2021 for any kind of mass distribution to the public. That of course assuming that the remaining trials go well.
Cost-wise, Operation Warp Speed‘s effort by the federal government to rush a COVID-19 vaccine has promised $1.95 billion to deliver 100 million doses to the federal government which in turn would be distributed to U.S. citizens free of charge. However, given capitalism’s inherently predatory nature, you can’t assume there would be any worldwide free rollout of a vaccine outside the United States.
Meanwhile, Pfizer plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization of the two-dose vaccine later this month. This would come after the drug company has collected the recommended two months of safety data.
