Moderna's Vaccine Candidate Looks Even More Promising than Pfizer's
There’s more good news in the COVID-19 vaccine world, with drugmaker Moderna’s announcement this morning that its vaccine candidate appears to be nearly 95% effective—just days after Pfizer said its version is nearly as successful. “These are obviously very exciting results," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the foremost U.S. coronavirus expert, said on NBC’s Today show this morning. "It's just as good as it gets.”
Both vaccines are based on a breakthrough method of using messenger RNA (mRNA) to trigger the body into producing COVID-19 viral fragments. The immune system then mounts a defense to that viral material. But the Moderna vaccine has one key advantage: unlike Pfizer’s version, which must be kept at super-low temperatures, Moderna’s stays viable at more typical freezer levels, making it easier to transport and store.
While it may be natural to see these vaccines as competitors, they’re best understood as complements to one another—the more effective vaccines we have available to us, the quicker we should be able to get the pandemic under control, both domestically in the U.S. and internationally.
Still, many of the caveats we raised last week regarding the Pfizer vaccine remain true with Moderna’s version: it hasn’t yet been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and it will take time—likely months—to produce, distribute and administer enough shots to start stemming the tide of the pandemic. The most vulnerable groups, like the elderly and health care workers, will be first in line, while everyone else waits their turn.
The takeaway: the Moderna news is very much worth celebrating. But it will do nothing—nothing—to curb spread in the short term. With cases and hospitalizations rising at alarming rates across the world, especially in the U.S. and the E.U., it’s incumbent on each of us to keep acting responsibly until mass vaccination is complete. What does that mean? Keep wearing your mask, stay socially distant, and make smart choices—now is the time to rethink Thanksgiving, for instance. The end of all this is in sight, but we need to work together to ensure as many of our loved ones and neighbors as possible make it there with us.
More than 54.3 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 1.3 million people have died. Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
On Nov. 15, there were 443,028 new cases and 5,947 new deaths confirmed globally. Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending:
Here is every country with over 800,000 confirmed cases:
New Zealand has largely defeated COVID-19, but leaders there are not letting their guard down. In new rules coming into effect Wednesday, domestic airline passengers nationwide and public transit riders in the city of Auckland will be required to wear masks, CNN reports. The requirements may help prevent fresh outbreaks as people get lax about mask-wearing; they also presage a future in which facial coverings become part of everyday life even as the pandemic wanes.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and a handful of other British lawmakers and government aides are in isolation after potential coronavirus exposure at a Downing Street breakfast late last week, the BBC reports. Johnson already has survived a severe case of the coronavirus, but it remains unclear if previously infected people are capable of being reinfected, or infecting others. Johnson’s move also demonstrates adherence to his country’s current pandemic guidelines, and may set the example for others.
So far, the Tokyo Olympics are still planned for 2021, after being bumped from this year’s calendar amid the coronavirus pandemic. But competitors and spectators who want to join in on the action may need to prove they have already been vaccinated against COVID-19, the head of the International Olympic Committee said today. Assuming the good vaccine news continues, mass vaccination should be possible in many countries by this spring; the Games are set to begin in late July.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 11 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 246,000 people have died. Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
On Nov. 15, there were 133,045 new cases and 616 new deaths confirmed in the U.S. Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
Just as they did after last week’s promising Pfizer news, U.S. stock markets jumped on today’s encouraging results from Moderna, with the S&P rising more than a percentage point by mid-morning. Stocks are best understood as a measure of investors’ future confidence in a company or the market more broadly, so the spikes suggest that traders feel reassured that there’s light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.
But the only way out, the saying goes, is through—and we’re not through this yet. Acknowledging that fact, many governors are issuing or reintroducing new restrictions meant to curb what’s become uncontrolled viral spread across the country. Among the new rules: a statewide mask mandate in North Dakota, a ban on indoor dining and drinking in Washington, and stricter limits on indoor gatherings in New Jersey. “Our situation has changed, and we must change with it,” North Dakota governor Doug Burgum said while announcing his state’s new requirements.
New York City schools remained open this morning despite the city’s flirtation with the previously-agreed upon 3% coronavirus positivity rate that should trigger a closure of the country’s largest school district; the city’s seven-day average positivity rate is currently 2.77%. That the city may find itself in a situation where schools are closed while high-risk but relatively low-necessity businesses like restaurants and gyms remain open for diners and exercisers has angered many New Yorkers.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Nov. 16, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Health Care Workers Are Falling Apart
When the novel coronavirus first hit the U.S. in the spring, it was at least somewhat geographically isolated, and doctors and nurses from around the country flew to hotspots to back up their local counterparts. Now the virus is everywhere, hospitals are overloaded, and medical professionals nationwide are exhausted, demoralized and angry, Ed Yong reports at The Atlantic.Read more here.
It’s Time to Hunker Down
Also in The Atlantic, Zeynep Tufekci—who’s time and time again proven to be a coronavirus must-read—advocates for fresh lockdowns to keep people safe as we await a vaccine, or multiple vaccines. “We are no longer in the open-ended, dreadful period of spring 2020, when we did not know if we’d even have a vaccine, whether any therapeutics would work, and whether we’d ever emerge from the shadow of this pandemic,” she writes. “We can see the cavalry coming, but until it’s here, we need to lock ourselves down once again.” Read more here.
How Do Tourist Shops Survive Without Tourists?
Walk a few blocks in any of Manhattan’s more touristy districts—Midtown, Downtown, Canal Street—and you’ll find no shortage of souvenir shops hawking “I <3 NY” t-shirts, miniature Statues of Liberty, and all manner of other tchotchkes. But with tourism flatlining amid the coronavirus outbreak, these stores (and those like them in cities across the U.S.) stand to become yet another victim of the pandemic, the New York Times reports. Read more here.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Alex Fitzpatrick and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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