Yep and it looks just as good as the Pfizer one, plus it doesn't have the cryogenic storage needs. Should be approved for emergency useFriday or Saturday. Been away for a few days given the snowstorm, but if it wasn't discussed, there was one other very interesting observation from the Moderna trial. They looked at asymptomatic infections in the nose after the first shot and saw reductions vs. placebo, but the results are merely suggestive of a reduction in asymptomatic infections for vaccinated people and not conclusive (not enough statistical power); Pfizer did not explore this, but given how similar results have been for both vaccines, one would expect them to share this element of performance.
But common sense says that a primed immune system ought to be able to prevent infections completely in more people than those who aren't vaccinated but get infected. Not having ironclad data on that, though is why many think we'll still need distancing/masking for some time, unless we can develop that data by monitoring enoug people post-vaccination after approval. However, IMO, we're going to see case rates start to plummet by the end of January, after vaccinating ~20MM health care workers, 2-3MM LTC residents and a good chunk (tens of millions) of front line workers and the elderly in general (plus we'll likely be near 30-35% of the general population having been infected and no longer infectious). If we see cases plummet by February, perhaps restrictions will be loosened for some events like sports, especially if one can show a record of vaccination. I hope so, as I really want to go to the NCAAs this year, given what happened last year.
The other good news we got the other day was that the Administration announced that they had purchased another 100MM doses from Moderna (for 50MM people) for 2Q21, to augment the 100MM doses from Moderna through 1Q21 and the 100MM doses from Pfizer through 1Q21. This means we'll have enough doses for 100MM people (30% of the US, although it's actually 37% of vaccine-eligible people, since ~65MM children aren't eligible for the vaccine yet). The extra 100MM doses get us to enough for 55% of adults in 2Q, which is likely to get us to herd immunity when combined with the number of people who have already been infected and are immune (there's some overlap, as some of them will get vaccinated). And if a few of the next wave of vaccines can come through by 2Q, we'll be in even better shape. That's why I think we're going to get back to at least close to normal sometime in 2Q21, faster than most others think.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-per...nalysis-details-support-moderna-covid-vaccine
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/...tion=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
P.S. What a mess this thread has become with all the incessant bickering about mostly non-scientific crap, which was not the aim of the thread, but moderation has been abdicated from what I can tell. When T is my favorite poster in a thread, something has gone wrong, lol. 😄😄
www.cnn.com
www.dailynews.com
thehill.com
rutgers.forums.rivals.com
