Biotechnology firm Moderna announced Monday that a preliminary analysis shows its experimental coronavirus vaccine is nearly 95 percent effective at preventing illness, including severe cases — a striking initial result that leaves the United States with the prospect that two coronavirus vaccines could be available on a limited basis by the end of the year.
The news comes a week after pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech lifted the stock market and people’s hopes with the news that their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90 percent effective.
At a briefing Monday, government officials predicted that if the two vaccines receive a regulatory greenlight, the first shots could be given in December, with enough to vaccinate 20 million people that month — and more becoming available into 2021 as production ramps up and other vaccine candidates may be successful.
The news is extremely promising but researchers still have some questions including how long will the protection of the vaccine last? Moderna has said it can produce 20 million doses by the end of the year — enough for 10 million people to get both shots.
No, Donald Trump Jr., the coronavirus has not ‘magically’ gone away now that the 2020 election has passed. With the virus surging in so many places both here and around the world, I wanted to create a way to share news related to the pandemic in an abbreviated manner. For more information on any of the stories below, please feel free to click the links. Per Johns Hopkins Hospital coronavirus tracking, the U.S. has now reported 10,353,604 cases of COVID-19 resulting in 240,688 deaths. • CBS News: Texas became the first state to surpass 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. The second-most populous U.S. state, Texas now has more coronavirus cases than all of Italy, which was previously one of the major hot spots of the virus. California is close behind with over 986,000 confirmed cases, as is Florida with more than 852,000. • ABC News: Faced with more than 2,000 new daily COVID-19 cases in his state and hospitals at capacity, Utah’s Gov. Gary Herbert has declared a state of emergency and issued a mandate for all residents to wear masks in public until further notice. Herbert’s announcement implored all state residents “to do everything in your power to stop the spread of this disease.” • CNN: Following the positive news regarding the effectiveness of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper that an average American could potentially have access to a coronavirus vaccine by April of 2021.
Dr. Anthony Fauci tells @jaketapper that an average American could potentially have access to a coronavirus vaccine by April of 2021. pic.twitter.com/u2yn1hI0Mp
• Pink News: Brazil’s homophobic president Jair Bolsonaro has told his country to accept coronavirus and stop dealing with it like “a country of fags”. The far-right leader made the remarks as his country has suffered over 5.7 million infections and 163,000 deaths from coronavirus. “We have to stop being a country of fags… We have to face up to it and fight. I hate this faggot stuff.” • Nevada Current: With the coronavirus surging in Nevada and nearly every state in the nation, Gov. Steve Sisolak urged people Tuesday to “to operate in a ‘Stay at Home 2.0’ mentality to get things under control so our public health response infrastructure can catch up.” Nevada has seen more than 1,300 cases a day over the most recent seven day period and hospitalization rates not seen since August. • The Hill: A top health department official in Wisconsin says that the state is nearing a tipping point at which some patients who need lifesaving care will be unable to receive it due to overcrowding in hospitals resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak.
Some news items you might have missed: • Reuters: The 2023 European Games, a regional Olympic event, will be held in Krakow, Poland. The announcement was met with disapproval since Krakow has embraced so-called ‘LGBT-free zone’ ideology. • Gallup Polling: Donald Trump’s attempts to push-push-push the approval of a coronavirus vaccine before Election Day appears to have backfired as Americans’ willingness to be vaccinated quickly has dropped 11 percentage points, falling to 50% in late September. • The Hill: Former president Barack Obama (above) released multiple state-specific tutorials on how to vote on Tuesday, 21 days before the Nov. 3 election. The state-specific videos included battleground states like Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. #VOTE
• Washington Post: The federal prosecutor appointed by AG Bill Barr to review whether Obama-era officials improperly “unmasked” individuals whose names were redacted in intelligence documents has completed his work without finding any substantive wrongdoing. Conservatives have tried to paint the “unmasking” of names — a common practice in government to help understand classified documents — as a political conspiracy. • Politico: For the fourth time in 3 months, an ad promoting President Donald Trump’s reelection has used footage from Russia. • The Upshot: If you’re curious about the latest polls – both national and in battleground states – hit the link. The bottom line? Today’s newly-released results show “Biden is ahead, and his lead is either holding steady or widening.” • Election 2020: Bruce Springsteen himself gave his blessing to the use of his song “Streets of Philadelphia” for a new campaign ad titled, “America Needs Pennsylvania.” This might be one of the most powerful campaign spots of the 2020 cycle. #VOTE
Donald Trump arrives in Pennsylvania later today. We need more than **1 MILLION VIEWS** before he lands. Please RETWEET and QUOTE RETWEET. !!! TURN VOLUME UP LOUD !!! pic.twitter.com/vTIq88WDak — Don Winslow (@donwinslow) October 13, 2020
Some news items you might have missed: • Pink News: The pharmacy chain Superdrug has launched the UK’s first-ever PrEP service and it will be fully remote (utilizing online doctors) in an effort to make it accessible to as many people as possible. Superdrug will, however, require that people accessing PrEP through its new service adhere to blood monitoring tests to ensure that they can safely take the HIV-preventing drug. • Back2Stonewall: It has been confirmed that the new HBO Max reboot series of the Green Lantern will feature the first Green Lantern character, Alan Scott – and, like in the Earth-2 comics, the character will be openly gay. • Instinct Magazine: Current and former pro football players (Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Rob Gronkowski above) took part in this terrific PSA for National Coming Out Day. “Today, on National Coming Out Day, we come together with one clear message,” say the athletes direct to camera. “To all current players who are thinking of coming out, when you are ready, so are we. It takes all of us and you deserve to be all of you.”
• Politico: South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison raised a staggering $57 million in the third quarter of this year, shattering the previous record for a Senate candidate as he seeks to unseat GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham. Graham, who has not released his third-quarter fundraising totals, raised $8.4 million in the second quarter and had $15 million in the bank as of June 30. • AP News: Here’s a bit of a warning sign for Donald Trump who won the 65+ vote by 9 points in 2016. The Villages, the nation’s largest retirement community located in battleground state Florida, recently held a 300+ golf cart parade in support of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. • The Hill: Donald Trump’s son Eric told ABC News’s Jon Karl on Sunday his father’s treatment for COVID-19 a “vaccine” that he further claimed the president helped create from “day one.” • Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Eager Georgia voters swarmed to polling places Monday morning for the start of three weeks of early voting before Election Day. Voters filled parking lots and waited in lines to lock in their choices in advance of November 3. As the tweet below notes, 410,000 absentee ballots have already been returned versus a total of just over 200K in 2016.
In 2016, just over 200,000 Georgians voted by mail in the general election, but this year, already 410,000 absentee ballots have been returned, and there are still 22 days until those ballots are due.https://t.co/zWsnuzING1
Greg Bloomer and Bisquit (via Instagram) Some news items you might have missed: • Woof Wednesday: Chicago InstaHunk Greg Bloomer and his handsome pooch Bisquit (above) make Hump Day just that much better 🙂 • CNBC: U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign broke its single-hour fundraising record as the Democrat’s debate with President Donald Trump wrapped up on Tuesday, pulling in $3.8 million, a campaign official said. • VoteVets: Air Force veteran and fighter jet pilot Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger endorses former Vice President Joe Biden for president. “Leadership isn’t just about sitting in the pilot seat. It’s about knowing what you’re doing and taking responsibility.”
* Celebitchy: Coronavirus depression nearly caused designer Tom Ford to skip his next collection. “I was irritated when I had a Zoom meeting because it meant washing my hair and perhaps trimming my beard. At the time, the thought of designing a collection seemed frivolous when so many important and disturbing things were happening in our world.” • Reuters: Results from an early study of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine showed that it produced virus-neutralizing antibodies in older adults at levels similar to those seen in younger adults, with side effects roughly on par with high-dose flu shots, according to researchers. • Twitter: After telling the violent group Proud Boys to “stand by” at last night’s presidential debate debacle and refusing to denounce white supremacy, Trump told reporters today he doesn’t know who the Proud Boys are but “Antifa is the real problem.”
“Antifa is a real problem” — Trump on what he meant last night when he told the Proud Boys to “stand by” pic.twitter.com/B7B8dGE6gW
From the Washington Post: 
