New vaccine breakthrough lifts global hope against pandemic
WASHINGTON: Global hopes of vanquishing the coronavirus pandemic were boosted Monday a er a vaccine was found to be nearly 95 per cent effective in a trial, bringing much-needed optimism amid surging infections and gruelling new restrictions.
The news from the US biotech firm Moderna comes a er similar results were announced last week for a vaccine candidate developed by pharma giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
Major stock markets surged Monday in response, building on a boom sparked by the Pfizer news one week ago.
Top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci hailed the results, telling AFP that the data exceeded expectations.
“The idea that we have a 94.5 per cent effective vaccine is stunningly impressive,” he said.
Moderna, whose results stem from a clinical trial of more than 30,000 participants, expects to have approximately 20 million doses ready to ship in the US by year-end.
Yet with widespread availability of any vaccine still far off, governments around the world are clamping down with unpopular but life-saving restrictions on free movement, gatherings and business.
In the US, President-elect Joe Biden expressed frustration over Donald Trump’s refusal to cooperate on the White House transition process, saying ‘ more people may die’ of coronavirus without immediate coordination on fighting the surging pandemic.
The idea that we have a 94.5 per cent effective vaccine is stunningly impressive. Anthony Fauci
The US is already the country worst-hit by the virus.
Globally, infections have neared 55 million with more than
1.3 million deaths, and experts caution there are still difficult and dangerous months ahead.
In hard-hit Europe, curbs have returned - o en in the face of protests - from Greece to Britain, where Covid-19 survivor Prime Minister Boris Johnson was self-isolating out of precaution Monday a er coming into contact with an MP who later tested positive for the virus.
And in Germany, which began a new round of shutdowns earlier in the month, Chancellor Angela Merkel was pushing for tighter measures such as masks in all schools and smaller class sizes.
While new cases were plateauing in Germany, daily numbers, officials said, were still too high. But Merkel said state premiers did not have any appetite to up the ante and introduce tougher curbs to bring down infection numbers.
Infections in the US, meanwhile, show no sign of relenting a er one million new cases in less than a week pushed the total number to 11,190,611, with 247,116 deaths.
The spikes have prompted new curbs in various states, while experts warn families against large gatherings for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. — AFP