President Trump praised the coronavirus vaccine from Massachusetts-based biotech company Moderna as one of two recent “great discoveries” after it announced Monday the vaccine is 94.5% effective according to interim analysis from a late-stage clinical trial.
The Moderna announcement came one week after Pfizer said its vaccine also tops 90% effectiveness.
In a Monday tweet, Trump asked “great ‘historians'” to “please remember that these great discoveries, which will end the China Plague, all took place on my watch!”
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar lauded Moderna’s vaccine as a “stunning result of President Trump’s leadership.”
MODERNA CEO CHEERS CORONAVIRUS VACCINE SAFETY AS ‘GAMECHANGER,’ WITH 20M DOSES AVAILABLE BY END OF YEAR
“More good news today from #OperationWarpSpeed: The Moderna/NIH vaccine candidate is now the second vaccine to show the potential for very high efficacy in Phase 3 trials,” Azar wrote on Twitter.
Trump launched Operation Warp Speed in the spring as a multiagency partnership between the federal government and private drugmakers to produce and distribute effective vaccines and therapeutics. Azar said Warp Speed has put around $2 billion to support the Moderna vaccine
A lab technician sorts blood samples inside a lab for a COVID-19 vaccine study at the Research Centers of America (RCA) in Hollywood, Florida, on August 13, 2020. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said Monday his company’s coronavirus vaccine has demonstrated a “gamechanger” safety record in ongoing studies.
“People who did got our vaccine did not get any severe disease, which is of course a gamechanger,” Bancel told “Mornings with Maria” Monday.
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Fox News’ Yael Halon contributed to this report.