The FDA will likely grant Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine emergency use authorization on Friday

• The US Food and Drug Administration will approve the Moderna vaccine on Friday, The New York Times reported.
• FDA regulators confirmed Moderna’s vaccine was 94.1% effective at preventing COVID-19 in late-stage trials, per agency documents released Tuesday.
• The US bought 200 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine as of December 15.
• Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel previously said every American will have access to a vaccine by Memorial Day, 2021.
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Millions more Americans could get access to COVID-19 vaccines within days.

The US Food and Drug Administration will authorize biotech company Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine on Friday, sources close to the agency told the The New York Times. The move would allow millions of Americans to get access to the vaccine by next week, per the Times.

American healthcare workers received the first COVID-19 vaccines on Monday, soon after the FDA authorized Pfizer’s shots for emergency authorized use. 

The US bought 200 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine as of December 15. The country, which gave Moderna federal funds to help establish vaccine research and trials, has the option to buy 300 million more doses.

Operation Warp Speed, the White House agency leading the vaccine development and distribution, aims to get 20 million Americans vaccines in December. The US sent states an initial shipment of 2.9 million Pfizer vaccines within days of the FDA’s green light. 

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Moderna said an analysis of late-stage clinical trials suggested the vaccine was 94.1% effective at preventing COVID-19. The FDA regulators confirmed the firm's analysis in documents released Tuesday.

Late-stage trial analysis suggested Pfizer's vaccine was 95% effective at preventing COVID-19. Both Moderna and Pfizer vaccines require two shots given four weeks or three weeks apart, respectively. 

American pharma company Johnson & Johnson is testing a COVID-19 vaccine in clinical trials. AstraZeneca and Oxford University announced their vaccine was 70% effective on average at preventing COVID-19, but later acknowledged mistakes in the trial that cast doubt on the shots. AstraZeneca and Oxford will likely retest the vaccine. 

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"What I believe is that by Memorial Day, in the US, anybody who wants a vaccine will get a safe and efficacious vaccine," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel told Business Insider's Andrew Dunn. Bancel told Americans to continue to wear masks and social distance as they wait for a vaccine.