CHARLOTTESVILLE (WINA) Infectious disease specialists and immunologists at the University of Virginia are very excited about news from Pfizer about a vaccine which in a preliminary report claims 90% effectiveness and no demonstrated safety concerns. Pfizer and BioNTech SE report in a press release their mRNA-based vaccine candidate has demonstrated evidence of efficacy against COVID-19 in an analysis done by an independent data monitoring firm. This is a preliminary report involving 94 confirmed COVID cases in a trial of more than 42,000 patients and enrollment is still being done. In addition, so far, no serious safety concerns have been observed.

Click here to read the entire release and report.

UVa immunologist Dr. William Petri calls this fabulous news.

He tells Charlottesville Right Now, Having a vaccine thats 90% effective, if this is borne out, will allow us to achieve herd immunity through vaccination. In comparison of like the measles vaccine is 90% effective, and is one of our very best vaccines. So theres never any reason to catch measles as long as the population is vaccinated.

He says people were expecting maybe 50% effectiveness which is what an influenza vaccine is in a given year, so this is better than what most people expected.

UVas ICU director and infectious disease specialist Dr. Taison Bell says Pfizer is looking for emergency authorization from the FDA, and he hopes that will be expedited. He anticipates that would be done by the end of the month with distribution beginning by the end of the year.

Pfizers release says they anticipate making 50-million doses doses in 2020, and up to 1.3-billion doses in 2021. Dr. Bell says we achieve herd immunity with about 60-to-70% of the population vaccinated which, if vaccination begins by the end of this year, would be achieved later next year.

Some have expressed concerns about taking a quickly-developed vaccine. Dr. Bell says hes been watching Operation Warp Speed very closely from the beginning.

It looks like where they saved time is more on the administrative and bureaucratic red tape, and not on the actual science in developing the actual trials themselves. So, I would be comfortable taking the vaccine based on what Ive seen so far.

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UVa infectious disease and immunology experts excited about Pfizer vaccine trial | NewsRadio WINA - WINA AM 1070