The COVID Vaccines: Bernie’s ‘Crooks’ to the Rescue

Bernie Sanders has described pharmaceutical companies as “crooks” who are “literally killing people every day.” So I guess we have some pretty nefarious characters to thank for the unprecedentedly rapid development of safe and effective vaccines that promise to bring the COVID-19 pandemic to an end. These innovative companies have invested years of work and billions of dollars that put them in a position to create new vaccines in record time.

It normally takes ten years or more to develop new vaccines for novel viruses. But now, only ten months after China identified the hitherto unknown SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID-19 and shared its genetic sequence, 53 COVID-19 vaccines created by a variety of new and old vaccine-making techniques are being tested in humans in 18 countries. Eleven of these are in the most advanced stage of trials (Phase 3).

Two private companies have just announced promising results in their ongoing trials. On November 16, Moderna, based in Cambridge, Mass., announced that preliminary data show its COVID-19 vaccine is 95 percent effective. A week earlier New York based Pfizer with its German partner BioNTech announced their vaccine is 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 in a preliminary analysis. Today Pfizer announced final results indicating that its vaccine is 95 percent effective and causes only rare and mild side effects. It was effective for different races, ethnic groups, and ages — unlike many older vaccines that do not work well in the elderly, the Pfizer m-RNA vaccine was 94 percent effective in people over 65, the group at highest risk for severe COVID-19 illness and death. Pfizer plans on seeking emergency-use authorization within days. Neither the Moderna nor the Pfizer trial has reported severe side effects.