The Latest on Covid-19 Vaccines
Everything that happened in the race to find a coronavirus vaccine this week
There are still 11 vaccines in Phase 3 clinical trials — no change from last week. None have been approved for general use.
Drama between the White House and the FDA. The biggest vaccine news this week was the clash between the White House and the Food and Drug Administration over vaccine safety guidelines. On Monday, the New York Times reported that the White House blocked strict new guidelines proposed by the FDA that would have made it difficult for any vaccine candidate to gain approval before Election Day — a goal the Trump administration has been pursuing for weeks. On Tuesday, however, the FDA guidelines were approved. The guidelines aren’t legally binding, but the FDA has shared them with vaccine makers, and many of them say they support the new rules. Some scientists, however, have argued that the new rules aren’t stringent enough; one group is now calling for large-scale monkey studies to compare Covid-19 vaccine candidates.
Operation Warp Speed’s new timeline. In an online symposium on Tuesday, Moncef Slaoui, head of the White House vaccine initiative called Operation Warp Speed, shared an updated timeline for when a Covid-19 vaccine is expected to be ready. Contrary to the president’s insistence that…
