Moderna’s Covid Vaccine: What You Need to Know

 

Does this mean the end of the pandemic? Who was in the trial? Is it part of Operation Warp Speed? And other questions answered.

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A volunteer received an injection of Moderna’s vaccine candidate earlier this year.

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The Massachusetts-based company Moderna reported promising results from its coronavirus vaccine trial at the end of November and was asking the Food and Drug Administration to authorize the vaccine for emergency use. Coming less than two weeks after similar news from Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna’s announcement offered more hope that there’s going to be a way out of the pandemic.

Like Pfizer, however, Moderna publicly released little data from its trial. But the company said full results would be published later in a medical journal. If Moderna’s vaccine gets the green light from the F.D.A., the first injections could begin as early as Dec. 21. The company expects to have 20 million doses by the end of this year. But certain high-risk groups will be given priority, and it will be months before widespread distribution becomes possible. In the meantime, the United States is suffering a devastating explosion of new cases of Covid-19.