There’s more good news on the COVID-19 vaccine front.
A week after Pfizer and BioNTech said their vaccine candidate offers 90 per cent protection, Moderna announced that its shots, too, will provide strong protection and appears to be 94.5 per cent effective.
This is as per preliminary data from Moderna’s ongoing study. Both Moderna and competitor Pfizer Inc. are expected to apply for approval within weeks for emergency use in the US.
Welcoming the “really important milestone”, Moderna president Dr Stephen Hoge said that what is more reassuring is the fact that two different companies are showing similar results.
“That should give us all hope that actually a vaccine is going to be able to stop this pandemic and hopefully get us back to our lives,” Hoge was quoted as saying by Associated Press.
“It won’t be Moderna alone that solves this problem… It’s going to require many vaccines to meet the global demand,” he added.
Monday’s news couldn’t have come at a better time, what with coronavirus cases crossing the 11-million mark in the US during the weekend. As many as 1 million of them was recorded in the past week.
The deadly COVID-19 pandemic, which is seeing a second wave in the US and several European countries, has killed over 1.3 million people worldwide, including nearly 2.5 lakh in the US.
Also Read: Major Breatkthrough: Pfizer-BioNTech COVID Vaccine Offers 90% Protection
