Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech announced Wednesday morning that a request for emergency use approval of their coronavirus vaccine candidate will be submitted to the FDA “within days.”
Pfizer said that its vaccine had concluded its Phase III trials and had achieved every benchmark the company wanted it to, including a stunning 95% effective rate at preventing symptomatic Covid-19 infections across all ages and demographics. The companies said that there have been zero serious side effects amongst the 41,135 adults who received the two-dose vaccine regimen, with the most common side effect being fatigue, reported by 3.7% of trial participants, and headache (2%).
The news from Pfizer and BioNTech have boosted hopes that a reliable vaccine will be available for mass-production within the next few days or weeks, at most. But the development and production of a vaccine present only half the challenge, and a massive logistical challenge – perhaps a greater challenge than developing a reliable vaccine – will need to be tackled by the government.
Pfizer’s vaccine uses new mRNA technology, in which messenger RNA is injected into the body and tricks the immune system into producing a response to what it perceives as the virus. But there’s a catch: the vaccine has to be stored at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that most pharmacist freezers cannot do. Pfizer has developed a super-cool storage unit packed with dry ice that the company says will allow for the vaccine to be distributed around the world, but experts still expect major supply-chain issues due to the difficulty of keeping the vaccines cooled at such an extreme temperature.
We are a lot closer to getting a vaccine that will hopefully end this tragic and frustrating pandemic, but major logistical challenges still lie ahead. Having Pfizer vaccines readily available for everyone who wants it will be a massive obstacle for President Trump and his successor to overcome, and they need to get working on it now.
Toddah rabbah to the CEO of Pfizer Corp., Dr. Albert Boura is a Greek Jew who has a Doctorate in Veterinarian Medicine. His bio reveals him to be a very private person yet very, very gifted in science and the pharmaceutical industry. (He may be a Liberal –pix(s) of him show he does not wear a yarmulke).
I find it odd, yet refreshing, that a Veterinarian has achieved more for me personally than all the government agencies in the US and the world combined. Using Pfizer and a small company in Germany , they united their ability and technology to allay the many fears and tears in Olam.
A Dr. Irving Weissman and Dr. Levy of Stanford University have combined their efforts to understand how cancers avoid detection by our immune system and multiply unchecked.
Also, great work is underway by Israeli scientists to treat and hopefully cure ALS.
These scientists’ work have my personal attention. Many members of my family such as my father died of inoperable throat cancer, my brother-in-law died of bladder cancer, my sister-in-law died of bone cancer and my brother died of ALS.
May the Almighty (HaShem as my frum friends say) bless these people and the wonderful work they do for you and me.
A goy,
Gerry Mullen
PS: I have often wondered if the 6 million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis had not been so–I will say the world to include my father, brother-in-law, sister-in-law and brother would have not died so horribly.
No doubt Albert Boura’s a smart man as you noted. Sorry Gerry for all your losses in your family. May Hashem comfort you for the losses of your dearly departed. Yes, I certainly agree that many great Jewish minds were destroyed by Hitler, as you put it, perhaps many scientists and doctors among them who may have helped the world. Hitler himself had a Jewish doctor, Eduard Bloch! But he was too filled with hatred and anti-semitism to let that fact sway him against his wicked decision making to go all in on a path to pure evil and destruction.
If it took the Obama administration so long to get their health-care website up and running, and forever to get their so-called “shovel-ready” projects up and running, how long will it take the former VP to distribute all these vaccines to millions of Americans. Trump will still be in office to get the show rolling, but then the inept take over. Ughhhh.
how long does vaccine last for ? lifetime?