Drug, dick york, the therapy the drug, the ce, the therapy. Judy all that and more on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by with fidelity wealth management, a dedicated advisor can tailor advice and recommendations to your life. That is fidelity wealth management. Consumer cellular. Johnson johnson. Financial Services Firm raymond james. Bmsf. The william and flora hewlett foundation. Advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world. The chance zuckerberg the chanzuckerberg initiative. At czi. Org. And, with the ongoing suppor of these individuals and institutions. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting in support from viewers like you. Judy the covid19 paemic in the u. S. Is generating both t despair and hoight. Total infections have soared over the 11 million mark nationwide, but there is also progress in the effort to stop the virus. William brangham begins our coverage. William a new week and another new experimeal vaccine showing signs of Real Progress against this novel coronavirus. A drugmaker modeid today early trials show its vaccine is nearly 95 effective. Idr. Stephen homodernas president. T a milestone, j ough. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Knowing the vaccine is going to be effective is great we still need to complete the regulatory process. William the announcement comes just a week after another leading candidate from pfizer had similar results. It r company has released the complete data behind their claims. Still, americas toinfectious disease expert, dr. Anthony fauci, hailed the news. So now we have two vaccines that are really quite effective. So i think this is a really strong step forward to where we want to be about getting control of this outbreak. William it a glimmer of hope as the country faces a Health Crisis that is growing exponentially. A staggering cases were reported one million nationwide in just the past 6 days. Million mark over ekend. 11 when it comes to deaths, the average is up 33 percent from 2 weeks ago. 820 a day. Fearing that hospitals are reaching their breakg points, officials nationwide are putting back into place a series of restrictns many hoped were in e past. California rolled back reopening plans, ordering nonessential businesses in 41 counties to close. In n jersey today, Governor Phil Murphy tightened limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings ahead of the holidays. T smaller the gathering i the less likely it is someone is infected and puts their loved ones at risk. It is that simple. William the city of philadelphia introduced similar restrictions. Over the weekend, washington freeze on Indoor Service at restaurants and gyms. This is where the virus gets us. Inside, where were heading during the winter. William michigan did the sa while also cancelling inperson classes for high school and College Students over the next 3 mpeks. But, president s coronavirus adviser, radiologist dr. Scott atlas, suggested on twitter people should quote rise up against those restrictions. He later tweeted he never meante to incite viol that drew a rebuke today from president elect biden. Mr. Biden what e hell is the matter with these guys . What is the matter wh them. Resist . William in wilmington, delaware, mr. Biden also warned thsident trumps refusal to concede defeat in the election and authorize a transition is delaying critical planning on a coordinated pandemic response. Mr. Biden more people may day if we dont coordinate. If we have to wait until jan. 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind, over a month and a half. And so itimportant that there be coordination, now. William dr. Fauci has said a smooth handoff was key to beating the paemic. For the pbs newshour, im wiliam brangham. Li judy as w reported, the promising news from moderna raised hopes about what could happen next year. Its important to remember the data have not been published in a peerreviewed medical journal yet. An the company has received significant funding from the federal government and from taxpayers. Nearly 2. 5 in dollars for research, development, and. Potential supp lets hear more about this News Executives involveading Noubar Afeyan is a cofounder and chairman of moderna. Is the ceo of flagship pieering, a venture capitaled firm that heaunch moderna. Thank you very much for joining us. This promising news today. How confident are you that this could help p an end to all the human suffering we are seeing now . In the science and clinicalreme. Arch, confidence is a relative term. Certainly, the data today encourages us to go forward rapidly to make preparations upon regulatory approval, to help the vaccine get out the challenge we face around the world, it is so grave that we needed to go through these tests but also be ready to make a difference. Uli am hope can do that today, subject to regulatory review. Judy can you put in laypersons terms whynk you tou were able to achieve this high level of what you call efficacy, 94. 5 succes . How were you able to do it . Noubar the underlying chnology, which is quite new and unprecedented, is called messenger rna. Ryit is the intermed between dna, which is where the information is stored about every aspect of life, and proteins, which are the acts, the elements that do the things that make us function as humans. The intermediary molecule s never been tried as drug or vaccine that could provide informatn to cel that they could then convert into a protein. In this case, the molecule coded for the spike ptein, now famous for this virus. What we did is we took the dna sequence of this spike protein, encoded it intona, which we had a decadelong program, and provided to the volunteers we had that we tested on so that their own cells make this protein. When their immune system sees this protein, it thinks it has been infected and starts fighting back. In our case, there is no infection. The immune system gets activated, learns to know what to defend for, and waits on ard. When the virus shows up, like an immune system that can recognize the teat, that immune system rapidly activates and knows what to do to neutralize the threat. Based on all of that, we believe we h a pretty goodhae that the preponderance of cases in the trial of in people who did not get the vaccine. Judy complicated, but i am sure for peopleho want to try to understand it, they will be able to understand it. What about the refrigerator, the freezing that is needed . Noubar what we announced as well today is that only could keep our vaccine stably for a long time, but we could take it out of, that conditi keep fridge rated for up to 30 days without loss of the efficacy. Further yet, you can take it out of the fridge, put it on the tabl and it is stable for another 12 hours. So, from the logistics ntstandpif we are only going to give this vaccine to a dozen people, it would not be a big deal. But if we are talkin about hundreds of millions of people, you have to figure out where is it stored, how long can you work with it, the way many other vaccines do. Judy it estimated that the federal government is putting Something Like 2. 5 biion into modernas work. Could you have done this without public money and how much private money went into it . Noubar there has been susbstaintial capital by govt rmer dharna substantial capital by the government and for moderna, and this was largely to make sure it went as fast as possible, which required more expenditures. Sewe also had of partnerships with the government before the pandemic. Based on that history, when this started, very quickly our government colleagues said we will putta some caupfront, we will try to get more. We reached out to shareholders added yet another billionquity, dollars at risk to accelerate the program. As the year has gone on,e struck agreements with the ongovernment through opera warp speed. That capital has been to work, developing one of the most advanced vaccines and one of the more Potent Solutions to this pandemic. Judy there is a progressive advocacyup g in the u. S. That is saying, because of that, what moderna should be doing is f providing acce who needs the vaccine rather than countries with abili to pay. They are saying, with u. N. Protocols, thiatis something oderna needs to do. Noubar t distribution of the vaccine will be done through governments. We have worked with the u. S. Government and many other governments we have entered into contracts to supply the vaccine. We also are i active discussions with the entity charge with supplying Vaccine Supplies for low and middle income countries. Our intention and hope is that our vaccine will be part of that suite of Solutions Offered to all countries through their government. The good news, within tho countries, we have standard agreements with some who have already signed up and others who isare activelyssing. Judy we thank you for talking with us. We appreciate it. Now, to a personal take on the vaccine our own john yang has hundred been a part of these Clinical Trials. And he joins me now. John, not everybody would want to take part in one of these. What made you want to do it and why do you think they wanted you other than the fact that you are an amazing, wonderful human being . John well, judy, i wish it could say it was contributing to science, but quite frankly it was the opportunity, the chance i could get the real vaccine. Half get the real vaccine, half get the placebo. I am in a high risk group. My age, i have asthma, high blood pressure. According to the dudtors of the that is what made me attractive. They wanted to find out if the vaccine was safe for people in those groups, and also a person of color. My desire get the real vaccine with was the shot, and paradoxically, the next morning when i startedo feel some of the side effects, it started to buoy me a little bit, i felt good about feeling bad judy so you thought maybe you got the real thing. D we have hee side effects are not too debilitating. And assuming you did get the real thing, how did it affect you . Hn there were two shots. The first day i was fine, second day started to get achy, muscle pain, muscle soreness, joint soreness, a fer too high, about 99. 9 was the highest it went. I got the shottu on day and those symptoms persisted until about surday, the first day that i really felt fine. The second shot, the onset was much faster. Ed bynight, i was in 7 00. Achy, feverish fatigue, bus onset was faster, it resolvedst too. I got in a tuesday and by wednesday it was fine. Judy in a situation like this where you dont know goingn i whether it is the real thing or a placebo, as this has ge on, what kind of questions has this ised for you about the vaccine . John they asked me to continue usual routine. I was working from home, wearing a mask when i was out and shopping. We still dont know how long the immunity lasts or whether i personally have immunity. Vi am beiy careful not to change any of my patterns, n to changthe cautions i am taking. Judy at sompoint, you will nd out for sure whether you have the real vaccine are not . They were so happy with whatd they were finding that they would offer the realci v to people in the placebo group. I am going in for my two month checkup tomorrow. Im going to ask the if they can tell me which group i am in and if i am the placebo, whether i can get the real vaccine. Judy when you offer to do Something Like this, youre making a sacrifice for everybody else. The race to develop a vaccine or more accurately, a number of vaccines, is a sprint noe u. S. Hatried on this scale ever before. Ident trump, his team, a Longtime Public Health leaders who were not political hires, sy the latest news about moderna and pfizw this approach is working. Ar but therquestions about ramping up an effort like this. Miles obrien has been reporting on the larger vainesearch program and those concns. Miles in a factory built to fight pandemics, they are going faer and working harder th ever to build the vats and turn on the spigots for coronavirus vaccines theres a big onrush of materials, a big onrush of activity happening in this facility and were currently normalizing our operations around that to ense that we get as much vaccine produced and out of the door as possible. Miles sean kirk is executive vicepresident of manufacturing operations at emergent biosolutions, a company with a long history manufacturing drugs aimed at big threats to human health. Ebola, zika,nthrax, and smallpox among them. We have a lot of experience with some potentially scary organisms, if you will, when were bringing thatxpertise to that capability and that confidence to bear in the fight against covid19. Miles funded with 628 million federal tax dollars,mergent is already producing covid19 vaccines here in baltimore. The team hopes to crank out tens to hundreds of millions of doses for their big pharma customers ke astrazeneca and johnson and johnn before they have finished Clinical Trials and before approval from the food and drug administration. Es it reate the possibility that if they do not navigate the clinical pathway successfully and theyre not approved, that the material may not be usable. Le meaning it will be incinerated. But there is growing evidence science is not racing down a dead end. Of the six leading vaccine contenders the u. S. Government is shepherding four are in the third and final , four stageli ofcal trials, where efficacy is tested among tens of thousands of volunteers. Last week pfizer issued a press release claiming i vaccine is at least ninety per cent effective. From knowing that it is positive, all the way to knowing that it is positive, and 90 percent,hich i never thought would be, that gave me a joy that i cannot describe. Miles Albert Bourla is pfizers ceo. His company is now completing use authorization he fda. Ency i think we know if it protects against the disease. We dont know yet, because we havent seen this data, ifnd how many of these cases were severe cases or light cases. Mi les todays announcement from drug maker moderna is nearly identical. All of this, only ten months after chinese scientists first fingerprint of the novel coronavirus, officrslly called saov2 the news brought President Trump into the white house rose garden to bask in a scientific victory on the heels of his political defeat. P pres. Trhis far exceeds any and all expectations. Nobody thought theyd get to that level. And we have others coming, which we think will be an equal level, maybe more, if thats possible. Les the friday the thirteenth victory lap was more than good luck. In the spring, the Trump Administration began funneling 10 billion dollars in federal funding to the private sector, mostly to hasten the hunt for a vaccine. Its called operation warp speed. It also has aimed to reduce regulatory burdens and encourage collaboration between private enterprise and federal agencies. Derek lowe is a veteran Drug Discovery researcher and author of the influential blog in the pipeline. People are scared and looking for a silver bullet. They sure are, and i dont blame them for a minute. D a situation like this. People are used to saying, okay, ive got this disease. Wheres the ug . Wheres the cure . Wheres the erapy . We know how to make vaccines for a lot of things but weve never tried to do it with the clock ticking like this. Miles johnson and johnson, a newshour funder, is deep in its phase three work on its vaccine. Paul stoffels is the chief ientific officer. This is a scientific moonshot. Mohow are yong so quickly . Fix it is motivation. Everybody sees the challenge in society but also the disease is in their family and severally people lost faembers due to covid. So, we dont have to ask people to work weekends and nights. U they just shand do it. Miles el dr. Stosays his team is doing many tasks normally done consecutively in parallel. Thats why, among other things, theyre already manufacturing the unapproved vacne at emergent. But hold onto your masks. It is likely no vaccine will be ready for widespread inoculations before the spring at earliest. Still, science at the has raised concerns a vaccine could be released before it is proven safe. We have to be cleareyed about this and that we aren that we are not taking on you cannot have you cannot have the vaccine be the world record for speed and e rk perfectly and be perfectly safe not all by d of the year. Ff miles ss and his scientific colleagues in the pharmaceutical industry bristle at the notion that pitics has set their timetables. Have you personally or your company felt political pressure to deliver faster . And if so, what have you done about it . We want to say we work fast, but its not under political pressure and we do what we need too in order to get to the results to show the safety and the efficacy. Ive never had any pressure from anybody and i wont take it either. It will be there when it is there. [vo] miles and in fact, Johnson Johnson and astrazeneca have had to briefly pse their vaccine trials because of unexplained illnesses among their volunteers. In a world wherecience is moving at breakneck speed to solve a global crisis, tapping the brakes may be the most reassuring news of all. For the pbs newshour, miles judy this leaves us with a number of quesons about whene vaccines couldailable more widely to the public next year and the challenges that exist. Doctor frais collins is the director of the National Institutes of health. He has been involved with all of this and the president s original task force on covid. He joins me now. Thank you so much for joinings again. How great is the risk still with these vaccines . Dr. Collins i think we are all these results as to theraged by efficacy. And the safety has turned out for both pfizer and moderna, to look pretty good. There are certainly people who have had side effects in terms of soreness, lowgrade fever, we are the optimistic that we are on a good path. That means that this is good enough to be submitted to the fda. That would include a Public Session of their advisory committee. At that point, that will be the trigger to start distributing themi roughly 4ion doses that would be available in december for pfizer m aerna. 40 million doses, 20 million people. Judy the fda part of this, you see that moving pretty smoothly . Dr. Collins bsolutely. The fda career scientists are extremely hardworking. They are working to make sure that what we have is safe. We are working at a bit of a public concern because of the speed. Even the name warp speed has causedome to worry that co