Albert Bourla, head of the pharmaceutical giant, discusses plans for distributing its vaccine, which it says is 95% effective, and explains the timing of his $5.6 mllion sale of Pfizer stock.
Hundreds of thousands of people in China have already received this vaccine. Now, preliminary trials are showing promising results, although it's too early to say whether it can prevent disease.
Doctors at Emory University on Monday celebrated the news from biotech company Moderna that its COVID-19 vaccine is 94.5% effective, saying the breakthrough is a historic day for science and that the next frontier will be to convince Americans to take it when the vaccine becomes available.
Facebook's goal is to help messages about the safety and efficacy of vaccines reach a broad group of people, while prohibiting ads with misinformation that could harm public health efforts.
The nation’s leading infectious disease doctor issued a strong rebuke of the White House on Thursday, saying he would not support political meddling in the rush to make a coronavirus vaccine available to the American public.
"The first question is, is the vaccine safe? Frankly, I'm not going to trust the federal government's opinion," Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference.
The Army is working with private industry to create a coronavirus vaccine, but also working on its own. The military service has a history of creating vaccines and making medical breakthroughs.
Moderna is currently developing a promising, yet still unproven, vaccine against the coronavirus. But Moderna executives have already sold tens of millions of dollars worth of stock in the company.
Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to the administration's effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, said having a vaccine by next month was "not impossible." But a longer timetable appears more likely.
Dr. Paul Offit, who serves on the Food and Drug Administration's vaccine advisory board, says he doesn't think an effective vaccine that's undergone adequate testing can be ready this year.
Animal and human trials are promising, Dr. Anthony Fauci tells lawmakers Friday, and the government is preparing for widespread distribution once a vaccine is shown to be safe and effective.
In research published Monday July 20, 2020 in the journal Lancet, scientists said that they found their experimental COVID-19 vaccine produced a dual immune response in people aged 18 to 55. British researchers first began testing the vaccine in April in about 1,000 people, half of whom got the experimental vaccine.
