(Elizabeth Payne/Ottawa Citizen) —Amid back-to-school jitters and fears of a possible second wave of COVID-19 this fall, something new is in the air: a budding optimism that the end of the pandemic could be in sight.
Canada has now signed advance purchase deals with four international companies to potentially produce up to 200 million COVID-19 vaccines. One of those companies, Moderna, is on track to have results from its Phase 3 trials as early as November. Another, Novavax, has produced a vaccine candidate that in Phase 1 trials produced antibodies in patients that were four times as high as in people who had recovered from COVID-19.
Unprecedented global cooperation and innovation means dozens of possible vaccines, using a variety of different approaches, have shown promising early results and are now being tested on humans to determine whether they are safe and effective. (…)