Today, Moderna announced that its coronavirus vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective. It’s the second vaccine candidate (after Pfizer’s, at 90%) to give us an early peek at their phase three results, and once again the news is good, but comes with caveats.
mRNA vaccine. No mRNA vaccine has yet made it to market, so it was an open question whether this technology is good enough to make a vaccine that works in the real world and not just in the lab. It’s good news that two different mRNA vaccine candidates both work. So far, the approach seems to be a success.
Both vaccines require two doses for full protection, but there’s one huge difference between the vaccines in terms of distribution: Pfizer’s vaccine needs to be kept at ultra-cold temperatures, while Moderna’s can be stored in an ordinary freezer. Moderna’s can also be kept at refrigerator temperature for a month after thawing, if needed.
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did not include people who are pregnant or breastfeeding, people who had previously been infected with the coronavirus, or people with some types of serious medical conditions.
Side effects were mild enough for the company to say the vaccine was “generally well tolerated,” with fatigue and muscle aches the most common serious side effects.
read more about the process for approval here.
Even if everything goes well, it will be months before most of us can consider getting the vaccine, as it takes time to manufacture enough vaccine for everyone. The New York Times reports that Pfizer thinks they can have 50 million doses available by the end of the year, and Moderna thinks they’ll have 20 million. That means if vaccination starts in January, only a small number of people, likely high-risk workers, will be able to get those vaccines initially. For most of us at lower risk, mid-2021 is the earliest we can expect to line up.
A lot can still happen between now and then. Real-world effectiveness might be a lot less than these initial numbers; the safety profile might be worse; we may have trouble rolling out the vaccine to everybody who wants it; enough people might refuse it and keep us far from the levels of immunity that would be protective for our society as a whole.
But if these vaccines do pan out, this might be the only time we’ll have to go through a holiday season while coronavirus cases are spiking to record numbers. Next year might be better.
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