The Coronavirus pandemic seems to be far from over, but news from the past couple of weeks has shed light on some possible solutions to the pandemic and has given rise to hope. 

Three COVID-19 vaccines have shown promising results. They are the Pfizer vaccine, the Moderna vaccine, and the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine. 

Pfizer, a company who was working alongside a German company, BioNTech, announced on November 9th that they have developed a vaccine that had a 90% effective rate among the volunteers who took the vaccine. This vaccine requires two doses for those that choose to get it. 

About a week later, Moderna announced that their vaccine had promising results as well. This vaccine had a 94.5% effectivity rate among the participants in the study. This vaccine also requires two doses. 

On November 23rd,  AstraZeneca and Oxford University announced that their vaccine is a strong candidate as well. This vaccine requires two doses, but after getting the second dose, the effectiveness rate is around 90%. 

In comparison, the influenza vaccine normally has an effectivity rate of around 50%. Seeing that the effectiveness of the new Coronavirus vaccines is as high as 90% is very encouraging news during the new peak of this pandemic.