| A second company announces a successful Covid-19 vaccine trial; a constitutional crisis leaves Peru without a president. Tonight's Sentences was written by Benjamin Rosenberg. | | | | | | | Moderna says its Covid-19 vaccine is nearly 95 percent effective | | | | | Jean-Christophe Guillaume/Getty Images | | - A week after Pfizer announced its Covid-19 vaccine was more than 90 percent effective, Moderna announced its own good news: Preliminary data from its ongoing study shows that its vaccine is 94.5 percent effective. [AP / Lauran Neergaard]
- Moderna's trial had 15,000 patients get the vaccine, with another 15,000 receiving a placebo. Among the patients given the vaccine, just five of them contracted Covid-19, with none becoming severely ill, while 90 of the patients who got the placebo contracted the disease. [CNN / Elizabeth Cohen]
- There are some caveats, however, as Vox's Umair Irfan writes: "The results are preliminary, the vaccine requires two doses, there are some side effects, the clinical trial isn't complete, and the findings were announced in a press release instead of a peer-reviewed paper." [Vox / Umair Irfan]
- Unlike Pfizer, Moderna received funding from the US government to develop its vaccine. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology corporation was part of the Trump administration's vaccine initiative, Operation Warp Speed. [USA Today / Adrianna Rodriguez and Karen Weintraub]
- The Moderna vaccine uses the same technology as Pfizer's — messenger RNA, which contains genetic instructions for amino acids, the building blocks for proteins. Moderna said it intends to file its vaccine to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use "in the coming weeks." [NPR / Joe Palca]
- Although researchers said the results of the initial trials were better than they could have imagined, the vaccine will not be widely available until at least next spring. The news comes as the US is regularly setting new single-day Covid-19 case records. [NYT / Denise Grady]
- Moderna's news caused its shares to rise by 8 percent, while stocks also rose overall in both the US and Europe. The US government next year could have access to more than 1 billion vaccine doses from Moderna and Pfizer, more than enough to vaccinate everyone in the country. [Reuters / Julie Steenhuysen and Michael Erman]
- If the FDA issues emergency use authorizations for the vaccines, the government could have as many as 20 million doses of the Moderna vaccine out by the end of 2020, while Pfizer could have 50 million doses by then. [Science Mag / Jon Cohen]
- Both vaccines will need to be stored at low temperatures. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine needs to be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius or lower, while Moderna's is stable at standard refrigerator temperatures (36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit) for 30 days. [Vox / Umair Irfan]
- "I don't want to get ahead of the FDA, but the data are striking," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US's top infectious disease expert. "Now we have two vaccines that are really quite effective. This is a really strong step forward to where we want to be, about getting control of this outbreak." [Politico / Zachary Brennan and Sarah Owermohle]
| | | Peru is left without a president after the interim leader quits | | - After Peru's interim president, Manuel Merino, stepped down Sunday, Congress could not agree on a replacement, leaving the country without a president as Peru battles one of the world's worst Covid-19 outbreaks and among Latin America's worst economic crises. [AP / Franklin Briceño and Christine Armario]
- Merino took over last week after Peru's Congress voted to impeach the previous president, Martín Vizcarra, following allegations that Vizcarra bribed government officials for their positions (which Vizcarra has denied). Merino was expected to serve until the end of Vizcarra's term next July. [BBC News]
- Peru's problem extends far beyond the current crisis. In every presidential election since authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori stepped down in 2000, the winning candidate's party either did not exist at the time of the previous election or had a very small presence. [Americas Quarterly / Patricio Navia]
- Merino's replacement will be Peru's fourth president in the current five-year term. Vizcarra took over in 2018 when Pedro Pablo Kuczynski resigned amid corruption allegations. The next elections will be in April 2021. [CNN / Stefano Pozzebon, Claudia Rebaza, and Jaide Timm-Garcia]
- Vizcarra was a popular leader, and his ouster led to massive protests in Lima. The protests came to a head Saturday, when two protesters were killed by police. Merino had been the head of Congress, leading many to suggest that the legislature had staged a coup on the presidency. [NPR / Matthew S. Schwartz]
| | | | | | | Michigan and Washington have announced new restrictions as Covid-19 cases continue to rise. Both states banned indoor dining, while Michigan also prohibited in-person instruction at high schools and colleges. | | | [The Daily Beast / Patricia Kelly Yeo] -
Four astronauts from SpaceX launched into space on Sunday for a journey to the International Space Station, the first operational flight for the company headed by Elon Musk. [NYT / Kenneth Chang and Allyson Walker] -
The leader of Ethiopia's Tigray region, which is on the verge of civil war with the federal government, has admitted to firing missiles on the capital of neighboring Eritrea. "As long as troops are here fighting, we will take any legitimate military target and we will fire," he said. [AP / Cara Anna] -
Hurricane Iota is on track to be the strongest storm of 2020, already the worst Atlantic storm season on record. Iota is a Category 5 storm and is expected to hit Nicaragua, a country recently ravaged by Hurricane Eta, on Monday evening. [ABC News / Emily Shapiro and Max Golembo] -
The Miami Marlins made history on Friday, hiring Kim Ng as the first female general manager of any major North American men's pro sports team. Ng is also just the second Asian American GM in MLB history. [MLB.com / David Adler] | | | | | "It was one of the greatest moments in my life and my career. It is absolutely amazing to be able to develop this vaccine and see the ability to prevent symptomatic disease with such high efficacy." | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | This email was sent to edwardlorilla1986.paxforex@blogger.com. Manage your email preferences, or unsubscribe to stop receiving all emails from Vox. If you value Vox's unique explanatory journalism, support our work with a one-time or recurring contribution. Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036.
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