Good morning. I'm James Holman from the Washington Post and this is the Daily

202 for Monday, November 23rd. In today's news, Joe Biden picks Tony Blinkin to be his Secretary of State.

The President's legal team is thrown into tumult, as Chris Christie calls them a national embarrassment.

And Israel's Prime minister visits Saudi Arabia for the first time.

But first the big idea. The coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University

and the British-Sw Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is up to 90% effective

when administered as a half dose and then a full dose a month later.

And in the trials, no participant who received the vaccine developed a severe case or required hospitalization.

AstraZeneca says in a news release this morning that the vaccine's average efficacy

is 70%, reflecting the disparate results from two different dosing regiments.

When two full doses were given at least one month apart, for example, efficacy fell to 62%.

Now the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna showed efficacy of about 95% according to data from late

stage trials that those companies released last week. So while the results

released by AstraZeneca indicate slightly lower efficacy, our London correspondent Bill Booth explains that it might actually be more significant

for stopping the spread of the pandemic, because this vaccine can be stored and transported at normal refrigerated conditions for up to six months.

That could make it significantly easier to roll out than Pfizer's vaccine, which has to be stored at negative 70 degrees Celsius or

modernos which is stable and refrigerated conditions for only 30 days and

must be frozen at negative 20 degrees Celsius after that. This one is also

significantly cheaper to manufacture. The cost and distribution elements are

critically important for addressing the pandemic in the developing world.

Moncef Sloi, the chief scientific advisor to the White House's Operation War speed vaccine effort

said Sunday on CNN that about 70% of the American population will need to get vaccinated for true herd

...