A Vaccine Breakthrough

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s a dark time in the struggle with the coronavirus, particularly in the United States, where infections and hospitalizations have surged. But amid the gloom comes some light: A trial by the drug maker Pfizer has returned preliminary results suggesting that its vaccine is 90 percent effective in preventing Covid-19. With the virus raging, how strong is this new ray of hope? Guest: Carl Zimmer, a science writer and author of the “Matter” column for The New York Times. Background reading: Pfizer has announced positive early results from its coronavirus vaccine trial, cementing the lead in a frenzied global race that has unfolded at record-breaking speed.Meet the couple behind the German company, BioNTech, that partnered with Pfizer to develop the vaccine. We want to hear from you. Fill out our survey about this show and others at nytimes.com/thedailysurvey.

Transcript

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0:25.6	From New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro.
0:32.6	This is a daily.
0:35.6	Today, a major breakthrough in the race to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus is raising hopes
0:48.5	that mass immunization could bring the pandemic to an end.
0:53.9	Return to our colleague, Science Writer, Carl Zimmer.
0:59.4	It's Thursday, November 12.
1:05.8	Carl, tell me how you learned the news about this vaccine.
1:11.3	So Sunday afternoon, I'm sitting on my deck doing a little work on a story and I get a
1:17.7	message from my colleague, Katie Thomas.
1:20.4	And Katie says, this is it, guys, and I knew what it meant.
1:24.2	What it meant was that the drug company Pfizer had some big news.
1:28.6	We knew that Pfizer had been doing clinical trials on a vaccine and that they were very
1:34.1	far along with it and that they might even be finding out soon whether the vaccine actually
1:40.4	worked or not.
1:42.6	So I start reading a draft of Pfizer's press release.
	...

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