
Moderna Vaccine – (Rush University COVID Journal)
With the rise in COVID-19 cases this winter during this global pandemic, Pfizer (a pharmaceutical company based in New York) and BioNTech (a biotechnology company based in Germany) provided hopeful news that their vaccine was over 90% effective at preventing COVID-19 on November 9. One week later on November 16, Moderna (a biotechnology company based in Massachusetts) announced that its vaccine candidate was 94.5% effective based on its phase III results of its clinical trial. Moderna Vaccine Phase III trial results Among 30,000 participants ages 18 and older in the United States, Moderna reported 95 participants with confirmed cases of COVID-19: 90 cases in the placebo group versus 5 cases in the vaccine group. This study included more than 7,000 people over the age of 65; more than 5,000 people under the age of 65 with high-risk chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiac disease, and severe obesity (42% of the total participants in this trial); and more than 11,000 people from communities of color (37% of the total participants in this trial). The vaccine was generally well tolerated with mild or moderate side effects including fatigue, muscle aches, joint pain, headache, and pain and redness at the injection site (2.0%). Based