Fauci: Pfizer reported 90% vaccine efficacy rate is “extraordinary”

• Pharmaceutical company Pfizer said on Monday that its vaccine was found to be more than 90 percent effective in a successful final phase of clinical trials.
• Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, called the reported efficacy rate “extraordinary.”
• While Monday’s result signals a step forward, the vaccine must be approved and widely distributed to the public for life to return to normal.

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, expressed excitement at the news that Pfizer’s vaccine was found to be more than 90 percent effective.

Fauci said the efficacy of the pharmaceutical company’s 90% vaccine was “simply extraordinary” and noted that this “will have a major impact on everything we do about COVID,” speaking at a Monday morning press conference for the HIV Prevention Trials Network.

“It’s a really good day for biomedical research and the clinical application of biomedical research,” he said, and added “this is great news for the future.”

Fauci said these findings could indicate that a vaccine developed by Moderna, also a candidate for mRNA, could also have positive results as it “validates the mRNA platform.”

He added that this “greatly validates” the spike protein as the target of the immune response, which is important because it is the target of “virtually all other vaccines” besides Moderna’s vaccine. Fauci told STAT that, as a result, this gives a lot of optimism about “what will happen in the next few months with the other vaccines.”

On Monday, Pfizer announced that its experimental coronavirus vaccine was found to be more than 90 percent effective in its final phase of clinical trials.

Although this high efficacy rate shows a lot of optimism for a safe and effective vaccine, the road to normality is still a long way off.

Pfizer said it is awaiting further data to reach the “required safety milestone” before seeking emergency approval, which they believe will likely take place later this month.

Even after approval, it will take some time for the vaccine to be widely available to the public, so people should expect to continue wearing masks and socially distancing themselves until enough people are immune to the disease.

President-elect Joe Biden congratulated the development but noted that “it will be many months before there will be widespread vaccination in this country.”