MODERNA SAYS PREPARING FOR LAUNCH OF COVID-19 VACCINE
NEW YORK: Moderna Inc is on track to report early data from a late-stage trial of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate next month, the company said on Thursday, offering the clearest timeline yet on when the world will know whether the vaccine is effective.
The company, one of the front-runners in the global race to produce a vaccine, said its independent data monitoring committee is expected to conduct an interim review of its ongoing 30,000-volunteer latestage trial in November.
Moderna said it expects twomonth safety data, as required by the US Food and Drug Administration, in the second half of November.
Germany and France will clamp down on movement for at least a month as Europe seeks to regain control of the rapid spread of Covid-19.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel ordered a new round of shutdowns from Monday, November 2, until the end of the month, although Germans will not be confined to their homes.
Merkel on Thursday said that Germany is in a “dramatic situation” as it goes into winter, which she said would be “four long, difficult months. But it will end”, a day after she and the governors of Germany’s 16 states agreed upon far-reaching restrictions, including the closure of bars and restaurants, limits on social contacts and bans on public events.
The dramatic lockdown decision from President Emmanuel Macron came after worrying infection spikes in France.
“All of us in Europe are surprised by the spread of the virus,” Macron said in a televised address during which he stressed that the second lockdown would be less severe than the first.
Bars and restaurants are to be closed until at least the start of December, travel between regions will be limited, and citizens will need an authorisation form to leave their homes, he said. But creches, schools, factories and building sites will remain open.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is under growing pressure to introduce another national lockdown as scientists warn measures to control the pandemic in England are failing.
Infections are doubling every nine days and an estimated 960,000 people are carrying the virus in England on any one day, according to the latest findings from Imperial College London and Ipsos Mori.
Fauci: wear a mask, no vaccine in US before Jan
Top US infectious-disease expert pleaded with Americans to set politics aside and wear face masks to stop the rise in Covid-19 cases.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and colleagues outlined how face coverings can help prevent Covid-19 in a commentary Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. He also said vaccines won’t be available in the US until January at the earliest.