It’s possible that an effective vaccine to prevent Covid-19 has been developed by Pfizer-BioNTech! The pharmaceutical giant announced yesterday morning that trials thus far have confirmed that a drug they and BioNTech jointly produced has been effective in roughly 90% of the volunteers they administered it to. If the scientific community and the CDC confirm its efficacy, the “corner” on this disease will be turned much quicker than anyone has predicted.
The stock market exploded on the news, with the Dow Jones average shooting over 1,000 points before 8 a.m. At this point, if the FDA “anoints” the drug as officially effective, then distribution of this vaccine can begin in earnest. As readers know, if all this is true, then the current rage this disease has been on here and elsewhere in the world can be halted and eventually the economy can be fully opened much, much earlier than anticipated. Is this the real beginning of a coin-op reboot?
The answer to that is yes – and no – no meaning that this won’t work its way down to the street level until well into 2021. A lot of hurdles have to be scaled until “business as usual” gets within reach. Apart from official vaccine approval, the manufacture and distribution of the vaccine will all take time. Pfizer’s Dr. Scott Gottlieb cautions that the drug may not be widely available until the second, even third quarter, of 2021. Or as Dr. Gottlieb put it, in time for the “fall 2021 Covid season.”
