Moderna’s vaccine against the coronavirus shows 94.5 percent efficacy

DORAL, FL – Moderna’s vaccine against the coronavirus shows a 94.5 percent efficacy rate for its shots according to preliminary results. 

The announcement made by the pharmaceutical company on Monday is similar to that made by Pfizer/BioNTech that earlier this month revealed its vaccine is 90% effective.

“So now we have two vaccines that are really quite effective, so I think this is a really strong step forward to where we want to be about getting control with this outbreak,” the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said to NBC Today.

Moderna learned about the results on a call Sunday afternoon with members of the Data Safety and Monitoring Board, an independent panel analyzing Moderna’s clinical trial data, according to CNN. 

“It was one of the greatest moments in my life and my career. It is absolutely amazing to be able to develop this vaccine and see the ability to prevent symptomatic disease with such high efficacy,” said Dr. Tal Zacks, Moderna’s chief medical officer.

The first phase of the vaccination process could begin in the second half of December with high-risk individuals, such as health care workers, the elderly and people with underlying medical conditions, to later move on to the rest of the population by next spring.

“I think that everybody else will start to get vaccinated towards the end of April,” Fauci said. “And that will go into May, June, July. It will take a couple of months to do,” reported CNN. 

Moderna revealed its vaccine did not have any serious side effects. A small percentage of those who received it experienced symptoms such as body aches and headaches.

The company will seek approval of the US Food and Drug Administration for authorization of its vaccine  as soon as it gathers more safety data later this month.