Health

Second Promising COVID-19 Vaccine from Moderna

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2020/11/19 16:06

Today's Vocabulary

1. vaccine (n)
a substance containing a virus or bacterium in a form that is not harmful, given to a person or animal to prevent them from getting the disease that the virus or bacterium causes

2. effective (adj)
successful or achieving the results that you want

3. treatments (n)
the use of drugs, exercises, etc. to cure a person of an illness or injury

4. trial (n)
a test, usually over a limited period of time, to discover how effective or suitable something or someone is

5. produce (v)
to make something or bring something into existence

6. candidate (n)
a person or thing considered likely to receive or experience something

Second Promising COVID-19 Vaccine from Moderna

The American drug-maker Moderna reported Monday that its experimental vaccine is 94.5 percent effective in preventing COVID-19. It is the second American drug-maker in recent days to report promising news from early results of a vaccine candidate.

Last Monday, Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech announced that its experimental COVID-19 vaccine is more than 90 percent effective.The two drug-makers said they could have as many as 70 million vaccine treatments ready in 2020 with the FDA’s emergency approval.

Pfizer and BioNTech also reported they could produce up to 1.3 billion treatments in 2021. Moderna said it could have 1 billion available next year.

Moderna’s vaccine has one advantage over Pfizer’s; it does not need extreme-cold storage. This makes it easier to transport. Moderna says the vaccine can be kept at temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius for 30 days. 

And it can be stored for up to 6 months at minus-20 degrees Celsius. Pfizer’s vaccine must be shipped and stored at minus-70 degrees Celsius. That is about the temperature of an Antarctic winter.

Countries such as China and Russia have already begun vaccinations. Two days after Pfizer’s announcement, Russia said its own vaccine Sputnik-V was 92 percent effective based on 20 infections in its large trial.

Resource: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/second-promising-covid-19-vaccine-from-moderna/5664535.html

Discussion
  1. Do you think there’s a risk of catching the illness from the vaccine?
  2. Do you think that vaccinations are useful or dangerous?
  3. Often vaccines are developed by governments and not drugs companies. Why do you think this is?

"Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of."

Angelina Jolie

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