Months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States maintains its lead with over 10 million cases and 239,000 deaths. Many, including the federal government, are eagerly awaiting a vaccine with a belief that it will be the ticket to going back to normal times. According to the New York times, there are about 69 vaccine trials currently ongoing in the U.S. and six of them are approved for early or limited use. On November 9th, the pharma giant Pfizer announced that the first set of results from their Phase 3 vaccine trial showed a 90% efficacy of preventing COVID-19 in participants, a breakthrough the CEO deemed "the greatest medical advance" in the world's last hundred years. The news has sparked nationwide excitement and optimism as daily reported COVID-19 cases in the country hit around 100,000.
The data report for the Pfizer vaccine Phase 3 trial has not yet been released but here is what we know so far. The Pfizer vaccine is an mRNA vaccine that instructs human cells to make the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and comes as two doses. The Phase 3 trial that began on July 27 enrolled 43,538 participants with 42% having ‘diverse’ backgrounds and 30% of the U.S. participants being racially and ethnically diverse. 38,955 of the participants have received the second dose as of November 8. The company reports that there are only 94 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in trial participants proving the vaccine candidate to be 90% effective in preventing the disease amongst those without prior infection with the virus.
After the release of this great news, government officials and the media have already moved on to talking about the next big challenge to the availability of a vaccine to the general public: distribution. However, there is a lot more that we don’t know about the safety of the vaccine and the protection it provides. It might take months to get these answers. In the meantime, everyone should utilize the safe tools we already have to protect us from an infection- masks and public health guidelines.
-Bethel
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