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(Tina Hesman Saey, Jonathan Lambert/ Science News) — The recent success of some coronavirus vaccines in late-stage clinical trials has inched us closer to the end of the pandemic — a glimmer of hope in a long year of living with the virus.
Now, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is gearing up to consider emergency use authorization for Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine on December 10 and for Moderna’s on December 17. But there are still crucial questions about how these vaccines and others will work once they get injected into people around the world.
While vaccinated people — especially those at highest risk of the worse COVID-19 complications — could soon be protected from severe illness and death, the shots may not yet signal a return to normal life.
Here’s what to know about these first vaccines and what their rollout might mean. (…)