Lisa A. Jackson, MD, offers perspective on efficacy of COVID-19 vaccine in TIME story

Lisa A. Jackson, MD, senior investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, was quoted in TIME magazine on the unexpectedly high effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna, Inc.

In phase 3 clinical trials, the investigational COVID-19 vaccine known as mRNA-1273 had an efficacy rate of 94.5%. Dr. Jackson, who is also a physician with Washington Permanente Medical Group, oversaw phase 1 clinical trials for the vaccine and injected the study’s first participants.

“For respiratory viruses, we have no history of anything near this efficacy,” Dr. Jackson said in the article. Of 95 cases of COVID-19 that occurred during the trial, 90 were in people who received a placebo and 5 in people who received the mRNA-1273 vaccine; all 11 cases of severe COVID-19 illness were in the placebo group.

The article noted that viral respiratory diseases like COVID-19 are “notoriously difficult to control with vaccines,” because the viruses that cause them regularly mutate to facilitate greater spread.

Note: Read the full TIME article here.