Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine trial is fully enrolled, 37 percent of participants are minorities: Company anticipates that it may have sufficient data to seek a regulatory OK in November.

Washington Post ^ | 10/22/2020 | Carolyn Y. Johnson

[SeekAndFind]

Moderna, the biotechnology firm partnering with the National Institutes of Health to develop a coronavirus vaccine, announced Thursday that it has fully enrolled its trial, with 30,000 participants — more than a third of whom are minorities.

The coronavirus vaccine trials have been closely watched to ensure they reflect the diversity of the U.S. population at a minimum, and Moderna’s enrollment was slowed in September to recruit more minorities. A fifth of the participants are Hispanic and 10 percent are Black, according to data released by the company. People over 65, a population also at high risk for coronavirus, make up 25 percent of the study population.

“I think that we have done quite well — I think the demographics of the Moderna trial have markedly changed,” Larry Corey, a virologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center said in an interview last week. Corey is heading up the clinical trials under Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to speed vaccine development.

“We hope that we continue to improve upon that, this is the first trial,” Corey said. ‘There are two others in the field, and two more scheduled to go — so our journey in covid-19 vaccines is just starting.”

[House Atreides]

“...Plain and simple vaccines do not work on almost all viruses the only ones they work on are very large and very old viruses like measles and like smallpox...”
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You’re free to believe this and free to not get the vaccine when available. I’m equally free to believe the results of the phase 3 trials and to choose to get the vaccine when available. Choice is wonderful!