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Anthony Fauci, America’s leading infectious disease expert, predicted that positive data from a second Covid-19 vaccine could come quickly after the robust results of this week’s trial from Pfizer and BioNTech.
Dr. Fauci told the FT Live Global Pharmaceutical Summit on Wednesday that he was optimistic about an upcoming update on the vaccine from the biotech group Moderna and that “he would be surprised if we did not see a similar degree of efficacy” to the positive results published by Pfizer. and BioNTech on Monday.
Moderna later said Wednesday that it now had enough cases to begin interim analysis of data from its Phase 3 trials, after Covid-19 cases spiked in the US and the country saw a significant increase in the infection rate last week.
About 30,000 people had received their vaccine or a placebo, and 53 people had tested positive for Covid-19, he said. Positive cases will be sent to an independent data monitoring board, which will compare the number of infections in the placebo group to the number of vaccinated participants, to examine how effective the vaccine is.
Dr. Fauci heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is working with Moderna to develop its vaccine and is contributing funding for the phase 3 trial.
“They told us that literally in the next few days to a week, they will be doing the same thing from looking at the data that the people at Pfizer did a week ago,” Dr. Fauci told the Financial Times event. He was optimistic about its efficacy, he said, because the vaccine was “identical in many ways” to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Moderna shares, which closed 8.4 percent higher at $ 82.44 following Dr. Fauci’s comments, rose another 1.9 percent in aftermarket trading in New York.
Dr. Fauci said that the results of the vaccine being developed by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, which demonstrated 90 percent efficacy, were better than he expected. “I was not expecting us to have such an amazing result as this.”
The successful data to date for the new mRNA platform used by Moderna and Pfizer was “an important step not only for Covid-19 but for the entire field of vaccination,” he said.
Dr. Fauci is one of the most prominent members of the current White House coronavirus task force, though he has found himself increasingly at odds with Donald Trump as the pandemic has worsened, and his cautionary messages collide. with the president’s desire to lift restrictions and increase. the economy.
On Wednesday, Dr. Fauci said he had not yet spoken with Joe Biden, the Democratic president-elect of the United States who beat Trump in last week’s election. Biden has already created his own Covid-19 task force to try to make sure he’s ready when he takes office in January.
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In a tense week after the election, which Trump has yet to admit, Dr. Fauci added that he was trying to avoid talking about politics “because he is very sensitive right now.”
Dr. Fauci described the unprecedented increase in cases in the US, which he said were “almost at an exponential level”, as “really quite concerning.” The United States has recorded more than 10 million coronavirus cases and more than 230,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project.
As the United States approaches the Thanksgiving holiday, 79-year-old Dr. Fauci has warned people to be careful when traveling and socializing if they have vulnerable family members. He said that his daughters would not come home because they wanted to protect him.
“As much as he may not like to say he’s old, well, actually I am,” he said. “We don’t want to close Thanksgiving, but we are asking people to consider the risk-benefit of a great family reunion.”
He warned that the world was still “very, very far from victory” over the pandemic, and said global cooperation would be needed to “intensify our control efforts” and “redouble public health measures.”
He added that Covid-19 was likely to remain endemic, native and widespread, for years to come.
“I don’t think it is going to be one and done, it will become an indolent level,” he said, adding that “people can be susceptible” to infection by the virus.
Additional reporting by Donato Paolo Mancini
