We’ve got more great news about coronavirus vaccines today!
The Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has been found to be 95% effective and more importantly it has passed all safety checks.
We previously heard that this vaccine was at least 90% effective and now it looks like it has increased to 95% which is on par with the Moderna vaccine.
They found a good immune response consistent across different ages, genders, races, and ethnicity demographics.
This includes a high efficacy rate for those aged over 65 years old which are of course most at risk for the coronavirus.
Dr Charlie Weller, head of vaccines at the Wellcome Trust, said this was “another bright moment in what has been a dark year”.
“Today’s update from Pfizer/BioNTech on the efficacy of their vaccine is highly encouraging. Such high levels of efficacy reported in over 65-year-olds surpasses all expectations we had for the first generation of Covid-19 vaccines. This group is amongst those most at risk of serious illness, and alongside healthcare workers must be prioritised to receive the first doses of any vaccines.”
Pfizer stated that there were no serious side effects from the vaccine reported which is the same finding that Moderna had.
The side effects that some people did have were very mild things like headaches and fatigue but even those were reserved to a small minority of patients. We’re talking like 2 to 3%.
This means that it is now ready to be presented to regulatory authorities to receive market approval.
It’s believed that the US FDA will be able to approve the trial data within days.
The Pfizer vaccine will require two separate dosages spaced out by a couple of weeks.
It takes a total of 28 days for the vaccination to kick into gear so there is a four week waiting period.
This vaccine will require special refrigeration protocol but there are already procedures in place to deal with that obstacle.
The companies have developed specially designed, temperature-controlled thermal shippers utilizing dry ice to maintain temperature conditions of -70°C±10°C. They can be used be as temporary storage units for 15 days by refilling with dry ice. Each shipper contains a GPS-enabled thermal sensor to track the location and temperature of each vaccine shipment across their pre-set routes leveraging Pfizer’s broad distribution network.
According to CNN, “Based on current projections, the companies expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.”
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Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.