On Thursday, December 17th, an advisory committee to the US Food and Drug Administration gave a thumbs up to the nation's second COVID-19 vaccine.

In the afternoon, the independent Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted 20-0 with one abstention to support mRNA-1273, a vaccine made by Moderna, a decade-old Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company.

Unlike the vaccine made by Pfizer and its German collaborator BioNTech, the Moderna one will be approved for use only in adults. Moderna recently expanded its research trial to teenagers, but they have not been enrolled long enough to draw conclusions.

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn could officially authorize the vaccine as soon as late Thursday. Moderna is expected to release an initial shipment of six million doses within hours of the FDA’s decision on the target groups of the emergency vaccine, which could come by as early as Friday. US officials have pledged to prioritize frontline health care workers and high-risk patients in the initial days of the largest vaccination campaign in the American history.

Having nearly the same efficacy on preventing COVID-19 diseases with Pfizer’s vaccine, Moderna’s candidate shows a 100% effectiveness to stop the virus to develop severe symptoms in the late trial. Furthermore, the higher temperature for frozen storage, and longer shelf life after thawing makes Moderna’s products more appealing to vaccination facilities in rural areas. Regular medical refrigerators can be used to freeze the vaccine for 6 months at -20 degree Celsius, or keep it at 2 to 8 degree Celsius for up to 30 days.

Yi Pan, Max Ren contributed this article
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