Pfizer's Covid-19 Vaccine Showing 90% Success Rate

Since the pandemic began, the spread of Covid-19 has been something that has been wildly out of control. It seems that there was never a solid action put in place to prevent the spread of the virus and has been systematically played down since its arrival in the United States. It's now clear that it's a full-blown problem with cases once again spiking in Michigan, and nation-wide cases nearing the 10 Million mark. With the President-Elect Joe Biden planning to take office in January, he's already assembling a Pandemic task force to try and contain this virus for good.

But right here in Kalamazoo, Pfizer has been hard at work to produce a vaccine that could hopefully get things back to a new normal in our world. According to new results released today on Monday, November 9th, Pfizer and collaborator BioNTech say that results show that their vaccine, BNT162b2, prevented more than 90% of those with the vaccine from getting the virus that causes COVID-19. Freep reports that this was measured by using 94 trial participants:

The vaccine was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing the disease. Half the participants received a placebo and half the vaccine, so the new data shows that more people who received the placebo than the vaccine came down with COVID-19.

Pfizer Chairman and CEO, Dr. Albert Bourla, released a statement expressing his overwhelming excitement for the progress being made:

Today is a great day for science and humanity. We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen. With today’s news, we are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help bring an end to this global health crisis.

So what can we hope for? The large Phase 3 study will continue to take place, with hopeful results pending. At this point, we can only wait and hope for the best. But we can do our part by undoing the damage this virus has caused the past 10 months by washing our hands, wearing a protective mask in public, staying home if you're sick, and being safe about where you go and how many people are around you. This virus is clearly no joke and we can only hope by next year sometime, we can start living our lives again.