The world is finally breathing a sigh of relief after nearly a year despite the COVID-19 Novel Corona Virus Pandemic having not let up yet. The main reason behind this is that humanity has now found a sliver of hope with a number of potent vaccine candidates giving some really positive results in the end stages of their testing. Just recently, Pfizer announced that their COVID vaccine candidate had returned a 95% efficacy towards the end of its Phase 3 trials and the company also immediately applied for Emergency Authorisation. Now, following in Pfizer's footsteps is the American biotechnology giant Moderna!

Moderna has announced that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate has showed 100% efficacy in most severe cases and an overall efficacy of 94.1%. Now, Moderna has also announced that it plans to apply for Emergency Authorisation in the United States. The vaccine candidate also raised no serious safety concerns in its Phase 3 clinical trials. Moderna has also announced that it plans to subsequently apply for conditional approval in Europe, from the European Medicines Agency. Moderna has also claimed that its vaccine's efficacy rate has been consistent across age, race, gender & ehtnicity demographics.

Moderna reported that there were 30 severe cases of COVID in its Phase 3 trials, all in the placebo group, proving that the vaccine was 100% effective in preventing severe cases. Moderna has reported that it has 20 million doses of the vaccine ready for distribution in the USA and can help in inoculating 10 million people before the end of 2020. Moderna and Pfizer have both followed a new technology called the synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA) to develop their vaccine candidates, while the vaccine candidate being developed by AstraZeneca in collaboration with the Oxford University, followed a more traditional approach. This vaccine candidate has returned just 70% efficacy on an average with 90% for a subgroup of trial participants who got half a dose followed by a full dose.