According to new reports from Moderna’s latest Phase 3 clinical trial, the vaccine offers greater than 90% efficacy against the coronavirus and is more than 95% effectiveness against severe cases six months after the second dose is given.
The company said earlier in April that the vaccine offered protection against COVID-19 for at least six months.
As of April 12, about 132 million doses of the Moderna vaccine have been administered around the world.
"The Moderna team continues to make important progress with our COVID-19 Vaccine. We are looking forward to having the clinical data from our variant-specific booster candidates, as well as clinical data from the Phase 2/3 study of our COVID-19 Vaccine in adolescents," said Stéphane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna in a company news release. "The new preclinical data on our variant-specific vaccine candidates give us confidence that we can proactively address emerging variants. Moderna will make as many updates to our COVID-19 vaccine as necessary until the pandemic is under control."
Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine while they review data involving six reported U.S. cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in individuals after receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Following CDC and FDA guidance, Tuesday, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued a statement from Dr. Erica Pan, state epidemiologist, regarding the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen COVID-19 vaccine.