Pfizer on Monday announced one of its vaccine candidates for COVID-19 is more than 90% effective.
“Today is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent COVID-19,” said Pfizer CEO Alberta Bourla, who worked with BioNTech on the project under encouragement from President Trump, the Washington Examiner reported.
The Dow immediately exploded at the prospect of fully reopening the economy, rising nearly 5% to just below 30,000.
The only significant stocks to decline were companies that have flourished during the lockdown, including Amazon and Netflix.
New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ordered nursing homes in his state to re-admit COVID-19 patients, said he thinks the Trump administration’s plan to distribute the vaccine is flawed.
In a “Good Morning America” interview Monday with George Stephanopoulos, he called on Joe Biden to take control of the coronavirus response, contending President Trump has mismanagement the response to the virus.
“The good news is the vaccine is coming,” Cuomo said. “The bad news it’s about two months until Joe Biden becomes president.”
He said the plan to let private providers do the distribution leaves out various communities.
“When you deny a problem the way Trump did you can never solve it,” Cuomo said.
Asked what Joe Biden would do differently, Cuomo said, “We can’t let this vaccination go forward the way the Trump administration is designing [because] Biden can’t undo it two months later.”
He said he was talking with other governors about how to “stop it.”
!@NYGovCuomo says it’s “bad news” Pfizer’s Covid vaccine came during the Trump Admin; says he’s going to work w/ other governors to “stop” distribution “before it does damage” pic.twitter.com/ULembNWokW
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 9, 2020
The Examiner reported independent data monitoring officials found from early test data that “the contrast in caseloads between participants who were given the vaccine and those who were given a placebo ‘indicates a vaccine efficacy rate above 90%, at 7 days after the second dose.'”
“This means that protection is achieved 28 days after the initiation of the vaccination, which consists of a 2-dose schedule,” a company statement said. “As the study continues, the final vaccine efficacy percentage may vary. The DMC has not reported any serious safety concerns and recommends that the study continue to collect additional safety and efficacy data as planned. The data will be discussed with regulatory authorities worldwide.”
Pfizer and BioNTech said they will seek emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration once more safety details are seen from a second dose.
That’s expected just days from now.
The Examiner said the two drug companies’ mRNA-based vaccine showed early promise in July, when the vaccine was shown to be safe in human trials.
“They found that two rounds of smaller doses led participants to develop more coronavirus antibodies than taking a single higher-dose vaccine,” the Examiner said. “Following those early results, Pfizer and BioNTech were awarded a $1.95 billion contract from the federal government to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine as soon as it is proven to be safe and effective. The contract was part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine initiative.”
Bourla estimated 50 million doses could be ready this year and 1.3 billion next year.
President Trump, on Twitter, called it “such great news.”
