November 16 coronavirus news

Moderna's coronavirus vaccine candidate is “more flexible" because "it can be kept in regular freezer refrigeration," US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Monday on Fox and Friends.

Pfizer's vaccine candidate has to be kept at minus 75 degrees Celsius — or about minus 103 degrees Fahrenheit. No other vaccine in the US needs to be kept that cold, and doctors' offices and pharmacies do not have freezers that go that low.

Moderna's vaccine can be kept at minus 20 degrees Celsius, which is about minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Other vaccines, such as the one against chickenpox, need to be kept at that temperature.

On Moderna's vaccine, Azar said:

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post misstated the temperature the Moderna vaccine can be kept. It's minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

As Moderna announced its coronavirus vaccine is 94.5% effective against coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease doctor, said vaccinations could begin next month.

Moderna plans to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration for authorization of its vaccine soon after it accumulates more safety data later this month.

Fauci says he expects the first Covid-19 vaccinations to begin "towards the latter part of December, rather than the early part of December."

Initially, there won't be enough vaccine for everyone. The highest priority groups — which include health care workers, the elderly, and people with underlying medical conditions, —will get the vaccine first.

"I think that everybody else will start to get vaccinated towards the end of April," Fauci said. "And that will go into May, June, July. It will take a couple of months to do."

New York City schools will remain open Tuesday, as the city’s seven-day test positivity rate remains under 3%, Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a televised interview with MSNBC.

The seven-day average test positivity rate as of Monday morning is 2.77%, he said.

If the test positivity rate reached or exceeded 3%, city schools could be closed and students would move to all-remote learning, the city previously announced.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has publicly suggested that schools across New York City should be allowed to “test out” of closing as Covid-19 rates continue to rise across the city.

Schools should also be able to “test out of a red zone” areas around the state, where infection levels are 4% or higher, Cuomo said.

Remember: The positivity rate is the percentage of people who test positive for the virus of those overall who have been tested. So, as more and more people are being tested, the focus is shifting to the positivity rate — how many of those tested are actually infected.

The US surpassed 11 million coronavirus cases on Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, as states across the country moved to enact restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the virus.

The latest milestone comes just six days after the US recorded 10 million cases, per Johns Hopkins data. It was the fastest the US has added one million new cases since the pandemic began.

At least 45 states have reported more new infections this past week compared to the previous week, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Nationwide, more than 246,000 people have died including —1,266 new deaths reported on Saturday alone.

Here's a look at where cases are rising across the country compared to last week:

Moderna announced this morning that its coronavirus vaccine is 94.5% effective against the virus, making it the second vaccine in the United States to have a stunningly high success rate.

Last week, Pfizer announced that early data show its vaccine is more than 90% effective against the disease.

While the two vaccines appear to have very similar safety and efficacy profiles, Moderna's vaccine has a significant practical advantage over Pfizer's.

Pfizer's vaccine has to be kept at minus 75 degrees Celsius — or about minus 103 degrees Fahrenheit. No other vaccine in the US needs to be kept that cold, and doctors' offices and pharmacies do not have freezers that go that low.

Moderna's vaccine can be kept at minus 20 degrees Celsius, which is about minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Other vaccines, such as the one against chickenpox, need to be kept at that temperature.

That means Moderna's vaccine can be kept in "a readily available freezer that is available in most doctors' offices and pharmacies," said Dr. Tal Zacks, Moderna's chief medical officer. "We leverage infrastructure that already exists for other marketed vaccines."

Another advantage of Moderna's vaccine is that it can be kept for 30 days in the refrigerator, the company announced Monday. Pfizer's vaccine can last only five days in the refrigerator.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post misstated the temperature the Moderna vaccine can be kept. It's minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Experts weigh in:

Alex Azar, US Health and Human Services secretary, praised the Moderna coronavirus vaccine trial news this morning on Good Morning America.

Azar said that because the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are already being produced, they hope to have enough by the end of December to vaccinate 20 million of the United States’ most vulnerable citizens.

When asked by Stephanopoulos about who would get the vaccine first, Azar said “we’re going to follow the guidance. Once the full data package is in, then we’re going to follow the guidance of CDC.”  

“It’ll be wherever it’s going to add the most value according to the data and the science and the recommendations of our experts,” he said. 

More details:

More than 1 million Americans have been infected with Covid-19 in the last week. Over the weekend, the United States topped 11 million coronavirus cases and 246,000 deaths, meaning that one in 1,340 Americans alive in January has now died in the pandemic and one in 30 has been infected.

It's also getting worse. At least 45 states reported more new infections last week compared to the previous week, according to Johns Hopkins University. A new record-high number of patients have been hospitalized. Hospitals in several states are running out of capacity and staff.

But the country's leadership is nowhere to be seen. As an average of more than 1,000 Americans died every day in the past week, President Donald Trump continued to ignore the deepening crisis. In the absence of national action, states have been left to manage on their own. Over the weekend, Washington state announced new restrictions on social gatherings, while Michigan told high schools and colleges to move to remote learning for three weeks. New Mexico is banning in-person services for nonessential businesses starting today.

But the Trump administration hasn't just gone missing. It's actively pushing against the measures that experts say are necessary to curb the spread of the virus. White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Scott Atlas criticized Michigan's new restrictions and urged people to "rise up" against them.

The US is now looking a lot like Europe did a month ago. Belgium, France, Spain, the Czech Republic and others then saw infection levels rising beyond their worst predictions. Running out of hospital beds was a real possibility.

But those countries managed to slow the spread and -- for now -- prevent the virus from overwhelming their health systems. How? Through lockdowns and mask mandates.

The US could follow in their footsteps. Or it could just keep talking about the election.

Here's what else you need to know about the pandemic today:

RELATED

What you need to know about coronavirus on Monday, November 16

Moderna's coronavirus vaccine is "94.5% effective" in preventing infection, according to early data released by the American biotechnology company on Monday.

The results come hot on the heels of an announcement by US-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer last week that its vaccine candidate was 90% effective.

The early results showed the vaccine protected people from getting both mild and severe forms of Covid-19, according to the company. 

In Moderna’s trial, 15,000 study participants were given a placebo, which is a shot of saline that has no effect. Over several months, 90 of those people developed Covid-19. 

Another 15,000 participants were given the vaccine, and five of them developed Covid-19. 

Among those receiving a placebo, 11 became severely ill, but none of the participants who received the vaccine became severely ill. 

The company said its vaccine did not have any significant side effects. A small percentage of those who received it experienced symptoms such as body aches and headaches. 

Moderna plans to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration for authorization of its vaccine soon after it accumulates more safety data later this month. 

Fauci said he expects the first vaccinations to begin “towards the latter part of December, rather than the early part of December.” 

A Covid-19 vaccine could be delivered as early as the end of the year, according to German company BioNTech and US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

"Based on current projections we expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021," the companies said in a press release last week.

The two companies announced last week that their candidate vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing infection in volunteers, per preliminary data. The vaccine uses a never-before-approved technology called messenger RNA, or mRNA, to produce an immune response in people who are vaccinated.

The mRNA works by tricking cells into producing bits of protein that look like pieces of the virus. The immune system learns to recognize and attack those bits and, in theory, would react fast to any actual infection.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post cited a Twitter account that has been suspended. That sourcing has been removed.