November 16, 2020
Terrific news today regarding Moderna’s vaccine trial… an unheard-of efficacy rate of 94.5%. In the study, 30,000 volunteers received a vaccination. Half of them got the real thing, half of them got salt water. Out of all those volunteers, 95 of them got infected with C19. Of those 95, 90 had gotten the placebo, and 5 had gotten the vaccine. Of those 5 who’d gotten the vaccine, none had a serious case of C19. Out of the other 90 cases, 11 of them were serious, a number that lines up with what’s been seen with some consistency out in the wild. In summary, as expected with any vaccine… it doesn’t guarantee you won’t get sick, but it dramatically cuts down your chances. And, if you do get sick, it’s likelier to be a milder course of illness. And, added bonus, this Moderna vaccine doesn’t need extreme cold to be transported or stored. It lives at the same temperature (conventional refrigeration) as many other common vaccines.
It’s great news if it holds up, like nobody in that study suddenly gets super-sick and has serious side-effects or anything like that. On that assumption, Moderna is already manufacturing for production, and some of the public (those at highest risk) might be getting the jab by late December. Perhaps by spring, we’ll be seeing a much larger general rollout. If that’s the case, there will be one hell of a lot of incredible summer parties. I’ll be sure to host a few. You’re all invited. Well… most of you.
However… we’re not there yet… and, as every day goes by, we seem to be drifting further and further from it. We will ultimately hit that finish line, but the idea is that most of us get there, and in good health.
I’ve added a new row of graphs… a graphic representation of deaths, just below the corresponding case-counts, just to keep a little reality in the picture… because there is a double-edge to the sword that will ultimately slay this virus, and that is… that this vaccine’s existence, whether today or in the future, gives many people the idea that this is all almost over and we can just gently glide to the end, and it’s party time now.
This is exactly not the time to let our collective guard down. The virus is still out there, the weather is getting colder and we’re all going to be indoors a lot more. The steepness of case counts and death counts – see attached. The gently rising curve of death hasn’t hit the levels we saw back in April, but it’s not hard to see the trend. We saw how quickly it blew up last time; not taking the proper measures could lead to this getting far worse. It’s up to us to not let that happen.
