A second promising COVID-19 vaccine this month was announced this morning.
US company Moderna joins Pfizer in having a preliminary COVID vaccine with at least a 90% effective rate.
Dr Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna, says what’s most reassuring is having similar results from two separate companies.
Moderna says the vaccine they’re producing protects 94.5%, but that number could change by the time the vaccine is ready for the public.
30,000 people in the US took part in the trial. Half of them were given two doses of the vaccine, four weeks apart, the rest were given dummy injections.
Based on the first 95 to develop COVID symptoms, just 5 people were given the vaccine, and the other 90 had received the dummy injection.
According to the data, there were 11 cases of severe COVID, none were from immunized people.
Canada has already procured millions of doses of vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer, should they be approved for use by Health Canada.
Moderna will be applying to regulators in the US over the next couple weeks and the vaccine could be available to those considered high risk by the end of next month.
