Experts: 2 COVID-19 vaccines bring us into ‘new territory’

With two potential COVID-19 vaccines on the way, experts say we’re “in new territory” in the pandemic, but it will take time to reach widespread vaccination.

A week after Pfizer caused excitement with the announcement that its coronavirus vaccine has been more than 90% effective in early trials, Moderna came out with its own announcement that its version of a coronavirus vaccine had reached more than 94% effectiveness.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called Moderna’s early results “stunningly impressive,” and the stock market rallied as investors took it as a sign that there may soon be powerful new public health tools to control the sprawling pandemic.

Researchers at Pfizer and Moderna both developed their vaccine using mRNA, which stands for messenger RNA. Biological machinery inside cells “read” this single strand of genetic information, which acts like an instruction manual that directs the cell to build proteins of certain specifications.

The coronavirus, once it has infected a cell, uses mRNA to trick the cell into manufacturing more copies of the virus. But Pfizer and Moderna use mRNA to tell the cell how to build proteins that resemble the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 infections, similar enough to impart immunity on a vaccinated person, but not cause an infection.

With the two vaccines now racing toward US Food and Drug Administration approval, Ronald Corley, professor of medicine at Boston University and director of the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, and Florian Douam, a MED assistant professor and NEIDL virologist and vaccine expert, offer their takes on how the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines could change the course of the pandemic:

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