US regulators have authorised a second coronavirus vaccine for emergency use.
This two-dose vaccine, developed by the biotech firm Moderna and the US National Institutes of Health, was about 94% effective at preventing COVID-19 in a large clinical trial.
Moderna’s vaccine is easier to store and transport than Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot, which got US clearance a week ago.
Moderna plans to deliver 20 million doses in the US by year’s end.
The authorization is the latest achievement in a remarkable story of science and business for Moderna, a company that has surged in 2020 based off its COVID-19 success.
The US Food and Drug Administration authorised Moderna’s coronavirus shot for emergency use, making the two-dose vaccine the second to be cleared by US regulators.
A second coronavirus vaccine has now joined the fight against COVID-19 in the United States.
On December 18, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized Modernaâs vaccine for emergency use in people 18 years or older. The decision follows a thumbs-up vote from a panel of experts that convened on December 17 to discuss vaccine data that the biotechnology company had collected from its ongoing clinical trial.
The vaccine joins a similar one from pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, which was authorized December 11 and has begun to be administered to people in high-risk groups in the United States, includinghealth care workers and people living in nursing homes (SN: 12/11/20; 12/1/20).
COVID-19 in Wisconsin: 84 more deaths, 3,675 cases reported on Saturday Photo: NIAID-RML via AP. FILE - This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus causes COVID-19. The sample was isolated from a patient in the U.S. On Tuesday, April 21, 2020, U.S. health regulators OK d the first coronavirus test that allows people to collect their own sample at home, a new approach that could help expand testing options in most states. The sample will still have to be shipped for processing back to LabCorp, which operates diagnostic labs throughout the U.S.
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Clinical staff at Royal Papworth Hospital care for a patient in intensive care during the first deadly wave of coronavirus (Image: Getty Images)
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An England-wide network of almost 70 specialist clinics has been established to help people suffering from the long-term effects of the coronavirus, or long Covid.
The problem is continuing to cause serious issues worldwide for many who felt they were in the clear once said to have been recovered from Covid-19.
Here’s what we know so far in the still-developing, ever-changing picture of the condition.
– What is it?
Long Covid, the name applied so far by experts grappling with the issue of longer-term effects of the coronavirus. The latest official guidelines in Britain use two definitions: people may have “ongoing symptomatic Covid-19” if symptoms persist from four to 12 weeks, and could have “post-Covid-19 syndrome” if they do not resolve after 12 weeks.