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| Photo by Daniel Schludi on Unsplash. |
As coronavirus continues to spread around the world, all eyes are on the race for a vaccine.
This month we've had two pieces of positive news. First, the drug companies Pfizer and BioNTech said a vaccine they were testing proved more than 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19, in a study of 6,000 patients.
A week later, Moderna, a biotech company working with government scientists, announced a trial vaccine they were working on was 94.5 percent effective in a test of 30,000 patients.
It's too early to know how effective these vaccines will be, and we still have to find ways to distribute them. But we have to stop and praise the speed these companies worked at and how quickly they've had this much success.
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Key Words
The word vaccine comes from the French vaccine "relating to cowpox" (1800). The word was created by the English doctor Edward Jenner, who developed the technique. According to the story, Jenner noted that people who got cowpox did not get infected with smallpox. He then gave a young boy cowpox as a trial, and the world's fist vaccination succeeded.
• vaccine, n. A substance given to people to prevent a certain disease.
→ Scientists are working hard to develop a vaccine that will prevent COVID-19.
• vaccinate, v. To give someone a vaccine.
→ Once a vaccine is developed, healthcare workers will be among the first to get vaccinated.
→ Hopes are that millions might get COVID-19 vaccinations by year-end.
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