Moderna said Monday its COVID-19 vaccine is proving to be highly effective in a major trial, another dash of hope in the global race to tame the coronavirus.
The company revealed its vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective, according to preliminary data. Last week, Phizer announced its own vaccine is similarly effective.
A vaccine can’t come fast enough, as virus cases topped 11 million in the U.S. over the weekend — 1 million of them recorded in just the past week — and governors and mayors are ratcheting up restrictions ahead of Thanksgiving. The pandemic has killed more than 1.3 million people worldwide, over 245,000 of them in the U.S.
If the FDA allows emergency use of Moderna’s or Pfizer’s candidate, there will be limited, rationed supplies before the end of the year.
Both vaccines require people to get two shots, several weeks apart. U.S. officials said they hope to have about 20 million Moderna doses and another 20 million doses of the vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech to use in late December.
According to the CDC, when a vaccine is authorized or approved in the United States, there may not be enough doses available for all adults. “Supplies will increase over time, and all adults should be able to get vaccinated later in 2021,” the CDC wrote on the official Operation Warp Speed website. “However, a COVID-19 vaccine may not be available for young children until more studies are completed.”
On Sunday,  Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel told Business Insider a vaccine will be available to anyone who wants it by the end of May 2021.
“What I believe is that by Memorial Day, in the US, anybody who wants a vaccine will get a safe and efficacious vaccine,” Bancel said on Sunday.
Bancel made the estimate based on production estimates at Moderna and Pfizer.
Once submitted, experts say it should take 10 days for the FDA to review Pfizer’s clinical trial data. This data is not yet available. The data released by Pfizer last week was only “preliminary.”
Pfizer is not expected to receive authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration before the last two weeks of December.