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Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate is 94.5 percent effective, according to early data released by the company in a press release. That’s slightly higher than the efficacy reported by Pfizer and BioNTech, which announced a 90 percent efficacy for their vaccine candidate last week. Both companies said they planned to ask the Food and Drug Administration for authorization within a few weeks.
The data still hasn’t been published or reviewed by outside experts. These efficacy readings are higher than many experts were expecting, though — the FDA said that they were looking for vaccines that were at least 50 percent effective.
“Aspirationally, you would like to see 90, 95 percent, but I wasn’t expecting it. I thought we’d be good, but 94.5…