Moderna says its COVID-19 shot is 94.5% effective

Promising news from a second COVID-19 vaccine: Moderna said Monday its shots provide strong protection, a dash of hope against the grim backdrop of coronavirus surges in the U.S. and around the world.

Moderna's vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective, according to preliminary data from the company's still ongoing study in 30,000 volunteers. Exactly a week ago, competitor Pfizer Inc. announced its own COVID-19 vaccine appeared to be similarly effective -- news that puts both companies on track to seek permission within weeks for emergency use in the U.S.

Dr. Stephen Hoge, Moderna's president, welcomed the "really important milestone" -- but said having similar results from two vaccines made by different companies is what's most reassuring. "That should give us all hope that actually a vaccine is going to be able to stop this pandemic and hopefully get us back to our lives," Hoge told The Associated Press.

A vaccine can't come fast enough, as virus cases topped 11 million in the U.S. over the weekend -- 1 million of them recorded in just the past week. The pandemic has killed more than 1.3 million people worldwide, more than 245,000 of them in the U.S.

Still, if the Food and Drug Administration allows emergency use of Moderna's or Pfizer's candidates, there will be limited, and rationed, supplies before the end of the year. Moderna expects to have about 20 million doses, earmarked for the U.S., by the end of 2020. Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech expect to have about 50 million doses globally by year's end.

Moderna's vaccine, created together with the National Institutes of Health, is being studied in 30,000 volunteers who received either the real vaccination or a dummy shot. Sunday, an independent monitoring board broke the code to examine 95 infections recorded in that final-stage study so far -- and discovered all but five illnesses occurred in participants who got the placebo.

The study is continuing, and Moderna acknowledged the protection rate might change as more COVID-19 infections are detected and added to the calculations. Also, it's too soon to know how long protection lasts, both cautions for Pfizer's vaccine as well.