When will the general public be able to get the vaccine?
Even former presidents have volunteered to get the
COVID-19 vaccine publicly to prove that it is safe.
All the questions that you want answered I am here to break down that for you today.
(beep) (heart thumping)
As coronavirus cases surge around the United States and little relief in sight,
the world got good news that Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech,
Moderna, and AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford announced
preliminary results that suggested an efficiency rate all the way up to 95%
based on preliminary data and could be available to the general public by early next year.
Many questions of these vaccines remain.
How do they work?
What’s the difference between Pfizer’s, Moderna’s, and Oxford’s vaccine?
Are they safe?
Can we stop wearing masks now?
When will the general public be able to get the vaccine?
All the questions that you want answered, I’m here to break down that for you today.
Hey Everyone, I’m Doctor Jordan Wagner.
I’m a board-certified emergency medicine physician and on my show,
I answer your urgent medical questions and clear up myths about certain deadly diseases.
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One thing that remains clear, these vaccines will not come in time
to rescue the world from the next several months,
when the virus will take many more lives unless the public
takes more stringent public health measures.
The vaccines are made by different companies.
One is being developed by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner,
BioNTech, another by biotechnology firm Moderna,
and a group of scientists out of Oxford University in the UK.
All drugmakers have moved at record speed and
will seek regulatory clearance for their vaccines in the coming weeks.
How do the vaccines work?
Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA vaccines,
which work differently than other shots available today.
Instead of introducing a less virulent form of a pathogen
into the body to teach the immune system how to combat it,
these new vaccines contain a snippet of the genetic code
for the coronavirus’s distinctive spike proteins.
The genetic code acts as a blueprint
for your own cells to produce the (harmless) coronavirus protein,
against which the body can create antibodies.
The effect, then,
is similar to that of a traditional vaccine: It equips the body to mount an immune response
to attack these proteins—and, thus, the virus—if
it is introduced into the body, preventing infection.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is made from a cold-causing ‘adenovirus’ that was isolated
from the stool of chimpanzees and modified so that it no longer replicates in cells.
When injected, the vaccine instructs human cells to produce the SARS-CoV-2
spike protein — the immune system’s main target against coronaviruses.
This vaccine actually entered phase III efficacy trials before Pfizer and Moderna,
and trials are ongoing in countries including the United States, South Africa, Japan and Russia.
Are these vaccines effective?
These are the first vaccines of their kind,
so researchers weren’t sure how well they would perform.
So far, the results reported appear positive.
For example, look at Pfizer’s trial, they had 43,538 and 30,000 participants.
Half the participants in each trial are given the vaccine,
while the other half receives a placebo.
94 participants contracted COVID-19, but fewer than
nine of those cases were in people who had received the experimental vaccine.
Moderna’s results were slightly better.
Of the 95 participants in the trial that contracted COVID-19,
just five had received the vaccine, resulting in 94.5% efficacy.
Oxford’s vaccine on the other hand had protection of 70% in an analysis.
The man who’s become a regular name in our households this past year,
Dr. Anthony Fauci, said the results suggesting high effectiveness are
“Just extraordinary. Not very many people expected it would be as high as that.”
As the race for the COVID-19 vaccine took off, the FDA had set a bar of 50 percent efficacy
for vaccine makers who wanted to submit their vaccine for emergency authorization.
The preliminary results from Pfizer and BioNTech and Moderna have already surpassed this standard.
To get a sense of how good these results are,
the flu vaccine only has an effectiveness of 40 to 60 percent.
Is the COVID-19 vaccine safe?
It’s important to note that efficacy is not the same as effectiveness.
Researchers don’t yet know how the vaccine will behave in the real world,
where a broader group of people will receive the vaccine.
The scientists behind the vaccine studies have tried to replicate
that at least somewhat, recruiting participants of different ages and ethnic backgrounds.
Participants of the vaccine trials, requiring two injections.
Participants of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine
did experience a few side effects and they were severe.
Moderna’s vaccine is reported to have to result in fatigue, headache, and joint pain.
Pfizer's side effects are more flu-like and can include muscle pain and fever.
Minimal information has been released on any side effects reported with Oxford’s vaccine.
Another thing the companies don’t yet know is how long the vaccine will be effective.
This question is one that can only be answered with time.
Clear results will likely only come after the vaccines have been approved by the FDA.
People always ask why and how companies were able to make a vaccine so fast?
Which is one of the reasons people are reluctant to take it.
This virus is similar to SARS from 2003.
Vaccines were made back then,
I even was a part of it when I worked for a company that did research for making vaccines.
There is an 80% genome similarity between SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2.
Who will get the new vaccine first?
The CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla has said that the company could have
30 to 40 million doses of the vaccine before the end of the year.
These doses would be enough for
15 to 20 million people to get an initial shot and a booster three weeks later.
Pfizer said they could produce about 1.3 billion doses of the vaccine a year.
That’s still not enough to satisfy the world’s need for vaccines.
Now, will you be able to walk into your nearest CVS Minute Clinic and get the vaccine?
Probably not right away.
Who exactly will qualify for the initial doses has not been decided.
Individuals who are working on the front lines such as healthcare workers and those who are
more susceptible to the virus such as the elderly will probably receive priority first.
When will the general public be able to get it?
Once the FDA reviews all of the detailed data about the vaccine’s safety,
effectiveness, and the companies’ ability to safely manufacture millions of doses,
we could start to see the vaccine roll out to high-risk groups by the end of the year.
There’s still some work that’s left to be done.
While the preliminary results offer some compelling evidence that the vaccine is effective,
they don’t tell us with certainty just how
effective it is Clinical trials simply aren’t set up to do that.
The effectiveness of a vaccine can only be firmly determined once millions of people get it.
But experts say that the preliminary data indicate that the effectiveness should be very high.
Scientists also discovered a few logistical challenges with the vaccine.
One challenge being the distribution of the vaccine.
How will the vaccine be distributed?
Here’s the thing, the Moderna vaccine must be stored
frozen at minus-20 degrees Celsius, but it will keep for a month at refrigerator temperatures.
This could make it easier to distribute to pharmacies
and to rural areas that don’t have specialized freezers.
Same goes for Oxford’s vaccine.
Overall keeping these options more cost-effective.
The vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, however,
must be kept at an ultracold, minus-70 degrees Celsius.
The company has even created its own GPS-tracked coolers filled with dry ice to distribute it.
This could get pricey.
What does this news mean for the other vaccine in the race?
There are 10 other vaccines now in late-stage trials across the globe.
The fact that Pfizer, Moderna, and Oxford have gotten encouraging results will actually help
give a leg up to the other companies in the race to develop an effective vaccine.
A widespread success of coronavirus vaccines would be a huge boom to the world’s health,
because a couple drug companies alone cannot meet the full demand.
Can we stop wearing masks now? Absolutely not.
COVID-19 cases are surging around the United States.
Believe me, it’s no fake news, I treat COVID-19 patients,
and the number of cases in the ER is only rising.
Again, even if a vaccine is authorized, it won’t be available to everyone right away.
It’s just not humanly possible.
When a vaccine is widely available, additional measures like masks
will still be necessary until the public health threat has subsided.
These results are promising
and are coming at a time when the world is anxiously awaiting positive news.
However, there’s still a long way to go before researchers can be
certain that a vaccine is indeed as effective as it seems.
Again, data is still incomplete.
Disparity in the latest results means there is considerable uncertainty in how well the vaccines
protect against COVID-19 without more data from ongoing efficacy trials.
All right, that's been a quick COVID vaccine breakdown with me,
Doctor Wagner.
Let me know in the comments if you have any other medical
questions that you’d like me to answer.
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Thank you so much for watching, stay healthy my friends.