Coronavirus vaccine news brings hope

Pfizer announced last week that its COVID- 19 vaccine showed an astounding 90% effectiveness rate in early test results.

Pfi zer said initial doses — if approved by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration this month — could be available by the end of the year.

It seems everyone welcomed the news, from health offi cials to politicians to Wall Street, where the markets soared.

Health offi cials have been saying for some time that a vaccine could be approved by year’s end, but the reported effectiveness caught everyone by surprise.

Most experts had hoped for a vaccine that might be 60% eff ective, so the early results from Pfi zer are remarkable.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, said the results suggesting 90% eff ectiveness are “just extraordinary.”

Pfi zer, which did not join the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed but instead opted to invest $ 2 billion of its own money in testing and expanded manufacturing capacity, did sign a $ 1.95 billion government contract to supply 100 million doses to the U. S.

While all of this is good news in the ongoing fi ght against COVID- 19, it must be tempered with some unpleasant realities.

Confi rmed cases are climbing daily throughout the U. S. and the rest of the world. The U. S. now has more than 10 million confi rmed cases, highest in the world. And America has nearly 240,000 deaths reported. A vaccine, while holding the promise most have been waiting for, will not be an immediate end to the pandemic.

It’s estimated that about 50 million doses will be available from Pfi zer initially, and that will cover 25 million people since two doses are required per person.

The fi rst to be inoculated will likely be health care workers and at- risk populations.

In the meantime, confi rmed cases nationally — already running at record rates of more than 100,000 per day — will continue to rise, and tens of thousands more deaths are expected in the coming months as cold weather moves in and people spend more time indoors.

The vaccine will not end the disease because people can continue to be infected in the interim period. Offi cials estimate it could take as long as a year to eff ectively inoculate the majority of the U. S. population.

And there will be major distribution issues to work out because of the vaccine’s supercold storage requirements.

This vaccine needs to be kept at a temperature of minus 94 degrees, and that could severely limit its availability to rural areas of the United States or poor countries with limited resources.

The development of an effective vaccine could be the turning point the world has been waiting for in the fi ght to control COVID- 19. But we are still a long way from making it widely available.

The best course of action in the meantime is the same advice health offi cials have been off ering for months — wear a mask ( to protect you and others), practice social distancing and wash your hands frequently.

The end to the pandemic is not yet in sight, but there’s hope.

Confirmed cases are climbing daily throughout the U. S. and the rest of the world. The U. S. now has more than 10 million confirmed cases, highest in the world. And America has nearly 240,000 deaths reported.