Today the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University was officially approved for use in the United Kingdom. With drugs by both AstraZeneca and Pfizer, the UK will now have more doses available to vaccinate its population.
The current outbreak with the newest strain of Covid-19 is the worst the island kingdom has seen in 2020. More than 53,000 new infections with the deadly virus were confirmed in the UK yesterday, it’s worst-ever daily statistic, breaking a record set the previous day.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine has an efficiency rate of 70% as proven by the clinical studies, which is lower than the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. The company claims it also found it to be 90% effective in patients that were given lower doses by mistake and is currently investigating if smaller doses will yield better results. Still, even at 70% it meets the criteria set by the World Health Organization.
The main advantage of the AstraZeneca vaccine is that it will be much cheaper than the competition, likely because it does not use the newer mRNA methodology that Pfizer and Moderna opted for. In addition, the AstraZeneca is also much easier to store and transport as it doesn’t require extremely cold temperatures.
Meanwhile, in the United States the three-way standoff between Trump, House Democrats, and Senate Republicans continues. On Monday House Democrats supported the President’s request to increase the amount of direct payments to households in the new stimulus bill from $600 to $2,000.
However, the Republican Party, which has a majority in the Senate, and thus, the final say when it comes to legislation, refused to hold a vote on the topic and instead tried to bind the proposal to other ideas Senate Republicans have pushed for, which Democrats are not going to agree to. In other words, now there is a separate proposal that contains things both desirable and undesirable to both parties, and will likely fail to gather support.
Despite the bickering over the stimulus that US families will receive as coronavirus relief, today US stock indices are making gains again amid broad market optimism.
Thanks to the high appetite for risk among investors and expectations of a prolonged weakness in the US dollar, cryptocurrencies are having a moment right now. Bitcoin reached an all-time high above $28,000 earlier today, while Ethereum remains close to $728.
