Hi, I'm Dan Fromak and welcome to Axios Recap.

Today's Wednesday, July 15th.

NBC's streaming service starts, Kanye's presidential bid ends, and we're focused on the race to find a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.

Late yesterday afternoon, Massachusetts drug maker Moderna got both the stock markets and social media very, very excited after reporting that its COVID-19 vaccine produced antibodies and appeared safe in the first 45 people who received it.

You might recall that Moderna was the first company to begin human clinical trials,

and it then compounded its sunny news by saying it'll begin all-important phase three tests

on July 27th.

That process would involve around 30,000 people, half of whom would receive a placebo. So far, so good.

The not so good? Well, for starters, a second injection was required four weeks after the initial

injection in order to create the desired autoimmune response. That's the sort of thing that

could increase costs and decrease availability.

But the bigger issue with the Moderna report is that all the 45 people were between the

ages of 18 and 55, and 89% of them were white.

That's good news for younger white people, but possibly irrelevant for some key demographics

that have been more likely to get very sick or die from the virus.

The bottom line here is that we are going to be living through mini hype cycles for the next few months.

Many experts are indeed confident that there's going to be a working vaccine authorized, at least for emergency use, by year end, and for wider distribution at some point

in 2021. But right now, it's a giant game of baby steps. In 15 seconds, we'll dig deeper on the

Moderna news and where things stand in the overall vaccine race with former acting CDC director

Richard Besser. But first, this. We're joined now by Dr. Richard Besser,

the former acting director of the CDC and current president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

You know, in the last couple weeks, we have seen press releases from certain companies that

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