In the last couple of months, two companies by the names of Pfizer and  BioNTech have been working hard on a COVID-19 vaccine. After many tests Pfizer has announced that their vaccine is highly effective, which even exceeded their expectations.

It is the first vaccine to be tested in the United States that will generate large amounts of data. Pfizer has come out and said that people who received two injections three weeks apart experienced ninety percent fewer cases of symptoms of covid. This exceeded scientists because predictions showed that the vaccine would at most have a sixty to seventy percent effectivity rate.

The company has decided not to file for an emergency use authorization. Pfizer will wait until they hit their next milestone, which means fifty percent of their patients must fully recover from COVID-19 with the vaccine. It is expected that in the third week of November, this milestone will be crossed.

Although the vaccine is looking very promising, there is still much more testing to be held. Scientists are still unsure if the vaccine can detect SARS-CoV-2, which is a type of covid that even some of us might not have known we had. SARS infects people with no symptoms, so it easily spreads because of unaware carriers.

Because the vaccine is so new, it is hard to tell how long it will protect against the virus. Along with this, the vaccine also causes side effects such as aches and fevers, which Pfizer compares to any adult vaccine.

With all of the bad news we have had this year, A vaccine in the works is great to hear. In the near future, COVID-19 could be something that people won’t have to worry about because of the researchers hard at work.