Recently, there has been a lot of talk about a COVID-19 vaccine and when it will be available to the public. Many breakthroughs have been made over the past couple of weeks that are giving a lot of people hope that a vaccine will be available for those who are immunocompromised in December of this year. 

Pfizer is one of the many companies that have created a vaccine. News of Pfizer’s vaccine has been spreading ever since their testing results came out. Pfizer’s website states “Vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis.” This means that thus far, the vaccine has been very successful in preventing people from catching the virus, but it is unknown if it will be able to help treat people that are already infected.

Another company by the name of Moderna has also recently come out with a vaccine that has had pretty successful trials so far. According to the New York Times, “The drugmaker Moderna announced on Monday that its coronavirus vaccine was 94.5 percent effective, based on an early look at the results from its large, continuing study.” If this trend continues, the Moderna vaccine may be more effective than the Pfizer vaccine. During a Fox Business interview, Moderna’s CEO stated that hopefully, the vaccine will have “full approval where, you know, every American who wants a vaccine that is of 18 years of age [or older] can get access to a vaccine.”

Before anything is set in stone for these vaccines, they will both need to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make sure that they are safe to distribute to Americans. 

Many people are concerned about the viability of these vaccines because there is not a sure-fire way to know their long-term effects. As of right now, both companies are reporting that their vaccines have no side effects which many people say is “too good to be true.” Scientists say that the vaccine will most likely give some people “flu-like symptoms” but that there is no way to know for sure without further testing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/health/Covid-moderna-vaccine.html

https://www.modernatx.com/ https://www.pfizer.com/

https://www.foxnews.com/health/when-will-moderna-pfizer-vaccines-be-available