Another very effective vaccine

This time from Moderna.  

From The Guardian

More than 1 billion people could be immunised against coronavirus by the end of next year with shots from the first two companies to reveal positive results, after the latest vaccine was shown to be nearly 95% effective in trials.

With the US’s top infectious diseases official, Anthony Fauci, hailing “the light at the end of the tunnel”, the US biotech firm Moderna announced impressive results for its mRNA vaccine on Monday, a week after interim results for a Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine showed 90% effectiveness.

The inclusion of high-risk and elderly people in the Moderna trial suggested the vaccine would protect those most vulnerable to the disease, said Peter Openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, who described the results as “tremendously exciting”.

Though it is more expensive, Moderna’s vaccine could potentially provide a major advantage over Pfizer’s, which requires ultracold freezing between -70C (-94F) and -80C from production facility to patient.

Moderna said it had improved the shelf life and stability, meaning its vaccine can be stored for six months at -20C for shipping and long-term storage, and at standard refrigeration temperatures of 2C to 8C for 30 days.

Moderna said it could potentially manufacture 1bn doses by the end of 2021, adding to a further 1.3bn from Pfizer/BioNTech in the same timeframe. Both vaccines require two doses and are due to be assessed by regulators in coming weeks.

virys without risking a surge in the death rate,

The whole population doesn't need to be vaccinated.  Even if just 60% are vaccinated, it would dramatically reduce the infection rate, because the virus would find it harder to jump from an infected person to multiple others.  More than that: if high-risk categories can be stopped from catching covid, the low-risk population groups, such as children can be allowed to catch the virus without risking a surge in the death rate.  Both these vaccines will be given to health-care workers, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems first, and then as more doses become available, progressively to people with lower risk.

Europe and the US are imposing new lockdowns, but these should be the last, as supplies of the vaccines increase.  In fact, a combination of lockdown and the vaccines would cause infection rates to plunge.  Australia and New Zealand have shown how effective lockdowns can be in reducing infection rates to zero.   If we can add vaccinations to the panoply of anti-virus tools, we will make covid something we'll be able to live with.  We'll have to have annual "top-ups" to maintain our immunity, but we'll be able to live with that,  Poor countries will need help from developed countries to vaccinate enough of their population to reduce the infection rate, R,  far enough below 1 for the disease to die out globally.  I hope that that will happen.