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International markets are rallying on news that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is developing a Covid-19 vaccine in partnership with Germany’s BionTech, which is said to be 90% effective in fighting the virus.
According to Protothema’s account, S&P futures were up 3%, Dow futures rallied 1,400 points at the opening, while the US dollar fell slightly, with the euro / dollar rate approaching 1. 1. Prices of commodities, such as oil, are also rising.
Pfizer spokespersons speak of “a great day for science and humanity” having announced that they will seek approval for use of the vaccine by the end of November.
Germany’s BioNTech and its U.S. pharmaceutical partner Pfizer announced Monday that their vaccine candidate is more than 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 in a study with more than 43,000 participants. Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s president and CEO offered this in a statement:
“Today is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our Phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine study provides initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid-19. “
According to the company’s current projections, there will be 50 million doses of the vaccine in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021. The phase 3 clinical trial of BNT162b2 began on July 27 and has enrolled 43,538 participants up to today, 38,955 of which received a second dose of the candidate vaccine as of November 8, 2020.
The Trump administration said the vaccine research was funded by Operation Warp Speed, but this turned out to be false as it was the German government that funded the vaccine development.
As of yesterday, there have been more than 480,000 new cases of COVID-19 reported around the world. Most of the new cases for one day, about 111,433 in the United States, highlight the bewildering toll the pandemic has imposed on society.
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