Vaccine Trials
Comment on how they set up the Trial
The United States government bankrolled Moderna's efforts, providing nearly $1 billion in support. In partnership with National Institutes of Health, they found that the vaccine protects monkeys from the coronavirus. In March, the scientists were the first to put a Covid-19 vaccine into human trials.
After those studies yielded promising results, Phase 3 testing on 30,000 volunteers began on July 27. On Nov. 16, Moderna announced that a preliminary analysis of the trial indicated that the vaccine was 94.5 percent effective. Out of 95 participants who got Covid-19, 90 had the placebo and only 5 had the vaccine. The results came just a week after Pfizer made a similar announcement about their own vaccine, which is also based on an mRNA molecule encoding the spike protein. Another promising result from Moderna's trial was the finding that the vaccine appears to protect people from severe disease. Of the 11 volunteers who developed severe disease, none were vaccinated.The trial will continue to gather more results; Moderna says it plans to submit an application for an Emergency Use Authorization in the next few weeks.
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