COVID-19 vaccine?

Pfizer releases data showing 90% effective rate of vaccine, will apply for emergency use approval

Officials from Pfizer, a pharmaceutical corporation based in the United States, and its German partner BioNTech, announced Monday their COVID-19 vaccine has appeared to be 90% effective in their incomplete test results that will be finished in late November. It’s high effectiveness rate is a surprise to many health officials – most flu vaccines are only 40-60 percent effective.

The news comes as COVID-19 cases reach an all time high across the United States, averaging over 120,000 new positive cases per day, with an average death rate of over 900 lives per day.

With the possibility of a vaccine coming at a critical time in case progression, Pfizer hopes to apply for emergency-use approval by the US Food and Drug Administration by the end of the month. In order to do so, Pfizer must complete the necessary safety evaluation and research trials. If all goes well, Pfizer says it can have enough vaccines produced by the end of 2020 for 25 million people.

Notably, the Pfizer vaccine is mRNA-based, meaning, the vaccine does not inject coronavirus into your body, resulting in a chance of getting sick from the vaccine itself.

There are six vaccines across the globe that have been approved for early and limited use and 10 vaccines are within the final stages of testing.

How will COVID-19 vaccines be administered once approved?

Administering the COVID-19 vaccine brings up a whole new batch of questions. The biggest may be when the vaccine will be available to the general public.

Vaccines in late stage testing require being stored at extremely cold temperatures.This proves to be a problem because of the lack of storage facilities located around the world. In order to store a large quantity of vaccines, you need a large area open and available for these vaccines. If vaccines are not maintained at that low temperature throughout their life (from factory, to travel, to storage facility, to you), the vaccine goes unused because it is no longer effective.

Once vaccines are authorized, the US Food and Drug Administration also can dictate what populations can receive the vaccine first. Most assume the vaccine will be given to high-risk populations and essential workers first.

2020 election results

The media has called the election: what now?

The Associated Press and several major news outlets called the 2020 Presidential Election in favor of former Vice President Joe Biden Saturday morning after Biden was projected to win Pennsylvania, an important swing state this election season. Yet, Biden remains “President-Elect” until the vote is confirmed by the Electoral College and approved by Congress. Because President Donald Trump has yet to concede the election, this leaves the U.S. government in limbo for as long as Trump threatens to challenge the result in court.

The media is calling the winner of the 2020 election before it has been confirmed by the Electoral College and Congress. But why?

The Associated Press began “calling the election” in 1848, declaring Zachary Taylor the President of the United States. Similar to how vote counts were hindered by COVID-19 this year, voting in the 19th century took place over many days and left Americans without a clear answer on the identity of the next president. Now, you might have noticed, Americans aren’t known to be the most patient people. This led the Associated Press and other news corporations to begin “calling the election” based on tabulated results, polling predictions and analyzing data to determine the President-elect. Television and Radio programs began calling the election, along with news organizations, in the 1960 race of Senator John F. Kennedy and at the time former Vice President Richard Nixon.

Elections are called based off the collections of media representatives stationed in all 50 states and state and county websites. State-based analysts then compare existing vote count to other data that can predict how a certain area or population will vote, using demographics and voting history.

This isn’t a fool-proof system, but the widespread use of predictions validates the process as being worthwhile. The most notable mistake made by journalism organizations was in 2000 when Fox News called the race for George W. Bush on election night. However, the race in Florida was still undecided until December was when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Florida to stop counting ballots, thus preserving Bush’s minuscule lead and making him the 43rd president. Several independent recounts after the Supreme Court decision posited that Democrat Al Gore — the candidate who earned the most popular votes nationwide — would also have won Florida, and thus the presidency, had the counting continued.

The Associated Press called the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden because his predicted electoral vote count rose over 270 (the number of votes needed to win a presidential election). On top of this, data showed Biden’s vote count would continue to rise because mail-in ballots were the last ballots to be counted in many states (President Trump urged his supporters not to vote by mail).

Still curious? Check out the video below by PBS News Hour.

Championing for United States Veterans

Veterans make up only 2% of journalists, but 7% of the entire U.S. population

Nations across the world celebrate Veteran’s Day on November 11 each year. In the United States, veterans make up nearly 7 percent of our population (roughly 17 million people). Yet, only 2 percent of the veteran population work as journalists.

The Poynter Institute recently covered the story of Zack Baddorf, a veteran who struggled to break into the journalism field immediately after serving in the US Navy. He eventually free-lanced for The New York Times and The Associated Press, but wanted to find a way to serve other veterans looking to break into the journalism field.

Baddorf founded Military Veterans in Journalism (MVJ) with hopes to increase the ease of transition from military life into journalism and the number of opportunities available to veterans within journalism. Wednesday, MVJ announced a partnership with the Knight Foundation, who invested $250,000 into MVJ to fund fellowships, workshops and resource sharing. The sum will also fund two full-time jobs at MVJ for veteran journalists.

The journalism industry often focuses on championing underrepresented voices: MVJ considers the veteran perspective to be one of those voices. Veteran and veteran families are a part of the media audience, but are vastly underemployed in the industry itself, limiting the perspective that only a veteran can give to specific stories.

Quill and Scroll’s founding principles align with the skills veterans possess because of their service to our country. We consider integrity, loyalty, leadership and judgement to be some of our most prized characteristics of journalists. All veterans are selfless examples of these principles: we would be lucky to have their perspective shared in present media.