COVID-19: Vaccines continue to progress as more proof of long-lasting immunity emerges.

ISLAMABAD -- In our 'Hope behind the headlines' series, we continue to round up the most encouraging results in COVID-19 research. But, as the pandemic continues to unfold with many countries embracing a second lockdown, a critical approach to these hopeful results is more necessary than ever. In a live social media chat, Dr. Anthony Fauci announced a few days ago that the first doses of a safe corona virus vaccine are set to become available in late December this year or early January 2021. This is, of course, if everything continues to go smoothly. Dr. Fauci was referring to two candidate vaccines currently underway: one in development by Moderna Therapeutics in collaboration with NIAID, and the other in

development by Pfizer in partnership with BioNTech. Since then, Pfizer announced a 90% effectiveness rate for its candidate vaccine. In this article, we track the progress of these therapeutics and offer a critical - yet hopeful - perspective. Both the ModernaNIAID and PfizerBioNTech vaccines use mRNA - that is, they...