On Nov. 16, biotechnology firm Moderna announced the promising success of a recent coronavirus vaccine trial. The vaccine was created with researchers from the Vaccine Research Center, a part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which Dr. Anthony Fauci directs.
Following Pfizer and BioNTech’s announcement of a vaccine with an efficacy rate above 90% last week, Moderna’s vaccine comes when COVID-19 cases are increasing on the daily and stay at home orders and mask mandates are being reinstated by state and local governments.
The Moderna trial included 30,000 volunteers; half got two injections of vaccine, and the other half received two injections of salt water. A total of 95 people contracted COVID-19, 90 of which received the placebo shot and five of which received the vaccine.
Besides the slight reported increase in effectiveness, Moderna’s vaccine poses another advantage over Pfizer’s: the vaccine can be stored at a warmer temperature. Pfizer’s must be kept at about minus 103 degrees Fahrenheit and only lasts five days in the refrigerator, while Moderna’s can be stored at minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit and can be kept for 30 days in a refrigerator that temperature and six months in a regular freezer. Most doctors’ offices and pharmacies have refrigerators that can accommodate Moderna’s vaccine, but not Pfizer’s, so nationwide distribution will be more manageable. In addition to not having low temperature storage readily available, warmer areas worldwide and areas with limited electricity may cause issues to store the vaccine.
After the announcement, current President Donald Trump tweeted taking credit for the vaccine development that “all took place on [his] watch.”
In the coming weeks, both companies plan to apply for emergency authorization to the Food and Drug Administration to begin vaccinating the public. Both vaccines exceeded the FDA’s requirement of 50% efficacy to be approved. While officials say Pfizer and Moderna are working to produce vaccines for around 20 million by the end of December, widespread vaccination won’t be available until months from now. The first batch of vaccines will go to those at high risk, such as health care workers and the elderly. Dr. Fauci in a news briefing advises to keep a high guard, as vaccines are not readily available in the meantime.
Questions to consider:
1. Should Trump take any credit for his oversight of vaccine development?
2. How do you think vaccine announcements will affect people's commitment to other ways to mitigate spread of the virus, like hand washing, social distancing and mask wearing?
12 comments:
An interesting question asked to VP elect Kamala Harris at the Vice Presidential Debate was, given a vaccine, should Americans take it and would she take it. She replied with the assertion that she would take it if doctors, not DJT, urged her to take it. I think that sentiment is shared by many Americans. With the overwhelming pressure placed on the FDA to approve a vaccine quickly, Americans have the right to be wary about the drugs contents and side effects during the first and second rollouts of the drug. Donald Trump has no right to take credit for the vaccine. Researches and volunteers that worked tirelessly to drive up the effective rate should be credited with its success. He should however, take credit for the hundreds of thousands dead and infected.
To begin with, i'm wondering how effective the vaccine experiment even is. Is giving a certain group of people the vaccine with others being a control group really enough proof of an over 90% success rate? As with Donald Trump, it's obvious this guy didn't have a clue on what was going on with vaccines with his monthly statement of a vaccine coming "soon".
I think that the news of another extremely effective vaccine is definitely good news and provides a hopeful outlook for the future. However, since Moderna's vaccine seems so much more effective and efficient than Pfizer's, I wonder if there's just going to be any reason to produce Pfizer's in the future. Even though we have such a high success rate for our vaccines, it's still very important that people don't let their guard down as dates and deadlines could be pushes back further than anticipated. According to their timeline, regular people won't be vaccinated until well into next year and we definitely need to maintain the mitigation of the spread of the virus until then. Regarding Trump's tweet, I definitely don't think he should be taking any credit as although it technically did happen under "his watch", he has no correlation or impact on the actual development of the vaccine.
The vaccine shouldn't influence people's decision to not wash hands or go out without a mask, but in reality, it is going to. It speaks volumes towards the severity of the virus if people believe it is going to get better, they have no reason to partake in precautionary activities they deem uncomfortable.
Although I have heard of Pfizer, I have never heard of Moderna. Their success is a result of government funding because they are a small company. I believe that the government is doing a good job funding supporting economy, but not a great job fighting coronavirus. The government is trying to fuel smaller market companies more than well-established pharmaceutical companies to bolster the economy, as the saying "Small Business is the backbone of America". If the government really wanted to expedite a vaccine, they would fuel larger markets with higher quantities of distribution and increased testing. This is one of the Republican views economies are hinged upon.
I have to agree with the previous commenters in their predictions that with the positive news surrounding COVID-19 vaccines, we will likely see an increase in people becoming more relaxed in their mask-wearing and social distancing. This is extremely worrisome as America is in its third large wave of COVID cases, with over 1 million cases in the first 10 days of November alone. As winter gets closer and temperatures drop around the country, many more people will be tempted to gather indoors, in closer quarters, not to mention holidays coming up. The increased close-contact and travel for the holidays will undoubtedly case a steep rise in cases. Many Americans believe that a vaccine will save America, Donald Trump included, even if that is true, masks and social distancing still needs to be practice in the interim and after. Even when vaccines are distributed to high-risk groups, the general public should still practice COVID-safe activities. No vaccine is foolproof, and as much as everyone would like COVID to just be "over," its effect will be long lasting. Nonetheless, these positive vaccine results provide some hope for the future, however, hopefully these vaccines will not turn into yet another political pawn...
Although the announcement of the vaccine is a success and one to be excited for, people should still practice the same CDC guidelines, like washing your hands, wearing a mask, and socially distancing themselves from one another. However, rather than continuing to follow these guidelines, much of the public would ignore these practices as they would probably believe that the vaccine is on its way, so there is no need to comply with the original coronavirus guidelines. If anything, the importance of these practices should be emphasized even more, as America is approaching its cold season, and the ability to get sick is now higher than ever as shown by the dramatic increase in coronavirus cases globally.
I'm not sure how I feel about this because it is really great that a vaccine is coming, but I am more worried about how people will react to hearing this news. This might encourage people to distance and wear masks less. I think the sooner they can roll out the vaccines the better because with winter coming and family coming together, the cases are going to surge even more than they are now. Hopefully most of the country can be vaccinated in the next half year or so.
I think it is great news that more companies are finding vaccines that claim to be very effective, with a 90% success rate. However, like what most commenters already mentioned, it is still very important to wear masks and social distance since a vaccine does not mean the virus will instantly vanish. There are still people out there who have higher risks of getting coronavirus and may not even be able to get the vaccine due to health reasons, so it is important to not let our guard down. I am hopeful for the future and I think that this is a major success
I completely agree with the above comments that people must continue to wear masks and social distance regularly, especially because in the best case scenario, it will still take months for the vaccine to be available to the general public. To address one of the questions, I don't think that Trump deserves credit for the development of the vaccine, especially given his poor response to the pandemic and his reluctance to believe in science. Throughout this pandemic, the Trump administration worked under the premise that the virus would magically disappear, in which they continue to refuse to wear masks, ignore scientific evidence, not social distance, not wear masks, and just overall act with blatant disregard for the virus and the countless lives lost to it. Also, to quickly address a comment I saw earlier on this post about the validity of the trials, I trust that the data is reliable. Since it was deemed too risky to directly expose trial members to the virus directly, they had each person go about their daily life normally, and analyzed differences in cases between the placebo group and the group that received the real vaccine. The data in the Pfizer trial had such a large statistical significance between who contracted the virus in both groups that it's extremely unlikely that the difference is due to chance.
Trump taking credit for the success of this vaccine is just another example of him taking credit for all the good in the country while distancing himself from everything bad. It's unfortunate that he didn't distance himself in the white house. I think it is ridiculous how Trump thinks he can take credit for this development despite his poor handling of the whole pandemic and his refusal to listen to scientific authority throughout it, but it is very in line with his past behavior. In regards to how people will react and change their behavior given this new news, I can definitely see a decrease in caution over wearing masks and maintaining social distance. Even without the promise of a vaccine, people just got tired of following the rules and decided to give the number of cases a little spike, and that process repeats itself every time we get the number of cases down. News of this vaccine is just the catalyst everyone needs to start being much more relaxed on the rules, knowing that their actions have resolvable consequences. Even though these immediate effects aren't the best, it's still good to hear news about the vaccine we've been waiting for for so long to finally start coming to fruition.
The progress of these vaccines are incredibly hopeful especially as COVID cases begin to rise in great numbers again. However, I think it is important to note comments made early on at the start of the virus regarding how fast the vaccines will come and how they'll solve the problem of the virus. On one note, understanding the stages and processes of trials is valuable in the fact that they are designed to often take years to be approved and released. A neuroscience professor and Alzheimer's Disease researcher mentioned during the summer that because people are trying to cut down the time to produce this vaccine and make it available, the FDA is going to be incredibly precise is analyzing both its positive and negative effects. Additionally, once vaccines become available to the public, it will take some time to get it distributed effectively. Healthcare workers will likely receive them very early on, but it may not be available to everyone for some time. And, people who are anti-vaccine are probably less likely to even seek out receiving one. At the end of the day, how can these vaccines be so widely and intensely effective, even "curable" in some perspectives, if there are people who may never receive them but continue to be in areas of exposure. Many people, including Trump, have relied on the prospect of vaccines coming out without taking the necessary measures to protect themselves and others before that became, and still is becoming, a possible reality. While the progress of these vaccines are incredible news, the idea of vaccines coming "soon" should never have trumped, and still shouldn't, following restrictions / guidelines or wearing masks or staying home.
This progress with vaccines to fight against COVID is promising especially with family gatherings becoming more common as the holidays roll in. But as Nina said, vaccines still require many stages of testing and may possibly take months, maybe even years, to allow vaccines to be mass distributed. And even then, distributing the vaccines to the many hospitals all across the US is another issue. An article from CNBC claims that even if states prepare to distribute vaccines in November, which has already passed, Americans are only expected to be immunized with the vaccine in mid-2021. But nonetheless, progress on the vaccine is still progress, and with a 94.1% effectiveness in preventing COVID-19 and a 100% effective in preventing severe cases, a viable vaccine may be coming out soon. Just recently and after their resent test with expanded data, Moderna has applied for FDA authorization for their vaccine. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA's vaccine advisory committee claimed that the data was "striking," and was amazed by the data. With this progress in the vaccine, I hope that the FDA will be able to approve this vaccine in the most safe and speedy way possible.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/04/most-people-likely-wont-get-a-coronavirus-vaccine-until-the-middle-of-2021.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/health/moderna-vaccine-fda-eua-application/index.html
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