Pfizer has announced that a COVID-19 vaccine has been developed in collaboration with Germany’s BioNTech SE. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, notes it has “an extraordinarily high degree of efficacy -- more than 90%, close to 95%.
Although this is exciting news, we will continue to watch how further developments and results from the testing unfold. This is a Phase 3 study and is ongoing and additional data could affect the results. We still need to understand the complete effectiveness of the vaccine after further testing is done. It is currently being tested in symptomatic subjects so it is not clear what the effectiveness will be in other groups.
Pfizer will not file for an emergency use authorization from the FDA until they reach another milestone: when the testing on safety is completed which should be by the end of November. There is some talk that the vaccine could be available for high priority groups by the end of December.
One week after the Pfizer announcement, Moderna announced their COVID-19 vaccine is strongly effective. It was reported that this vaccine reduced the risk of COVID-19 infection by 94.5%. Anthony Fauci said that the results from both of these companies was better than he had expected. Moderna reports they will file for an emergency use authorization with the FDA in the coming weeks.
We remain hopeful about this exciting progress and will look forward to some additional data and hope that further good news allows all of us to look forward to this vaccination.
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