excites you, what you love, that is really important. isoming a good journalist the path to having your pick of what industry you will cover. it is more important to be a good journalist then to be an airline geek or whatever it would be. i would say do the best you can with journalism and find your passion. host: the column is called "middle seat." it is available at wsj.com. washington journal continues. host: [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] >> we take you live now to california where -- insider ans us via zoom for a deep it's been kind of hard to keep up with all the vaccine news of the past two weeks or so. just take us through what

you're expecting here in the coming days and week. what we should be watching for this week. hanks for having me, john. that makes two of us as far as trying to keep on top of everything. as far as the current state of play, these past three weeks we have seen three crucial positive readouts of data from leading programs. the first came from pfizer, the second came from moderna, and the third one this morning just came from astrazeneca and the team at oxford. these are three leading vaccine front runners, all three in late stage studies appear to be effective, the first to 95% effective in preventing covid-19. thatnity is expected to do late november, early december. that will set up an fda decision, all eyes turning to

the agency to see how quickly they can approve it and for what subgroups of the population. vaccineing on in the phase, but there is a lot going on and much-needed positive news when you think about the surge that we have seen in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. the fda approval, how quickly could they approve it, and what could keep them from being approved, and how is the fda ensuring confidence in the public in the safety of these vaccines? guest: i talked to peter marks, who is in charge of this process. he outlined a process and said it would be measured in multiple beats. we are seeing that play out. it is a crucial group of independent experts that is going to meet on december 10 to discuss pfizer's vaccine. that vaccine is already filed. pfizer has submitted their emergency use authorization last friday.

-- it will take the agency until december 10 together these experts, whether to recommend these authorizations were not. it will take a week or two more, my own guest, on -- my own guess . by mid-to-late december we could see one way or the other authorizations from the fbi. i at least on the effectiveness front, modernity and pfizer show 95% effectiveness. they wanted at least 50% effectiveness. it might make the gap part simpler. do we see good trends in the data as far as does it reduce the changes you get taken to the hospital, in an ic unit -- an icu unit, or that you die from

the virus. was very upfront as far as saying what we know and what we don't know, and what we don't know about the vaccine is still the durability of protection, how long-lasting immunity would be, and the long-term safety profile host: -- long-term safety profile. ast: i know this is taking lot faster. we'll take 17 days from the committee to meet? it seems like a long time from right now. guest: that is what i went back and forth with dr. marks on. the fda is really intent on ensuring public trust in this process. that is probably the top priority. they don't want it to appear to anyone on the outside that they are rushing to a vaccine without gathering the independent group of experts to look at the data and to vet it themselves.

they want to go through it with eight transparent way. the upshot is that it takes time, dr. marks calculates they are moving as quickly as they can while going through all the steps of the process. they need to prepare briefing documents for the committee members that go through all this data. these are massive studies of tens of thousands of people. there have been a lot of data points to sift through, and the agency's primary responsibility is to make sure they are not missing anything in the data set, and that takes time. host: give viewers a number to call in with questions that you might have on this process, develop a phone lines. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. .ndependents, 202-748-8002 it health care reporter from business insider, andrew dunn.

it is businessinsider.com where you can see his stores. one question for the last segment on the story that the caller wanted me to ask you when you came on was, how these , concernsre developed that they were made from stem cell lines and therefore there might be religious considerations that some folks might have about whether to inject it. guest: it is not something that has been too pertinent in my covers or something i have seen from a lot of people i have talked to. -- that came up a lot with the regeneron antibody drug that donald trump took. authorizationd over the weekend. that digs back -- that dates back to the 1970's. it is many iterations away from that in the scientific process. i have not seen that concern

being raised, but it is something i'm watching out for. cash on afternoon at astrazeneca news this morning, effective, 95% in the other vaccines. take us to the positive of thees or drawbacks various vaccines and what astrazeneca provides. guest: you start with pfizer from two we should go and that was highly effective. one of the biggest downsides, the biggest limitations of that beduct is that it needs to stored at extremely cold temperatures, -70 degrees celsius, which when you think of the infrastructure needed to support that, the u.s. health care system, the world health care systems are not set up to accommodate that. product also shows a

high degree of effectiveness. you can store that in a refrigerator for about 30 days. that gives the health care system more leeway in figuring out how to distribute it across the country, get it to retail pharmacies get to people who might not have access to a metropolitan health care center. astrazeneca's news came out today and we are sifting through it. this data is from brazil and the u.k., so it is not necessarily -- it is closer to 20,000 people. it is 70% effective on average, which is a little bit below the first two results, the researchers found they were testing different variations, different doses of astrazeneca's vaccine, and they found if they gave a low dose first followed by a second dose, there was 90% effective. there are still a lot of questions around it. that is only based on 2741 people who received that type of

dosing combination. so we will want to see that number in a bigger group of people. that study is ongoing in the u.s.. inrazeneca, that can be cap a typical refrigerator storage for about six months while keeping stability. that is very encouraging to see. when you think about vaccinating the world and immunizing developing countries that might not have the same infrastructure , the stream the cold storage, it is an encouraging development to see for sure. host: plenty of callers already. claudia is up first out of an osha, wisconsin, on the republican line. go ahead. caller: good morning. i know on the previous segment people were talking about who should get it first. my concern is increasing the number of dosages. i know that pfizer and moderna, the two leading companies right now -- and modernity has better

capability for storing it at lower temperatures, but i am wondering why they cannot maybe solicit other manufacturers who already create injectables and have cold storage capabilities to try to increase those numbers , rather than having it be a social issue of who is first, but to really emphasize maybe doubling the amount of production host: that can happen. thanks -- of production that can happen. host: claudia, thanks for the question. andrew dunn? moderna, ando of pfizer come as far as when you get such a great readout, which is what they see with high effectiveness, the next question becomes how much do you make? i pulled these numbers today as we are looking at astrazeneca -- 2 million immunizations in december. moderna can immunize about 10

million people. it is a little under 40 million people in december. how can you ramp that up and expanded through 2021? that remains to be seen to some level. they have a trajectory that shows that growing into it eventually billions of doses. but it will take time to get there. one of the biggest hurdles is the supply chain. these are very complicated vaccines, especially pfizer and modernity. they are based on a new technology called messenger rna. there is a requirement to make the vaccine that is not typical. you need to get the , these fatty containers that you can carry the -- it is complex stuff and it requires hunting the globe to find these things in many different developers are making them. it will be interesting to see. if one appears to be highly effective as we get more data, what another pharmaceutical

company volunteer its own manufacturing power, or would a government step in and say we are going to try to impel you to do this? that is something i'm watching very closely. we haven't seen that yet. i think it is due to the complex city of the biology. these are not pills coming off the supply chain line, these are really complex, intricate medicines to develop. host: craig and washington, d.c., line for democrats. caller: good morning. i wanted to -- i see a lot of people you're dying a lot and going to the hospital. i would like to know is it possible that people would get regeneron, the same medicine that the president got, and the steroids? are they available? quantities are very antibodyn regeneron's therapeutic. almost playing to that last that the manufacturing

process around an antibody drug is really complex. regeneron is made of two different antibodies used together to some level, which is a very complicated manufacturing process. so doses are going to be greatly limited on that, especially when you see the surging levels of cases in hospitalizations. the government has taken over that distribution question. those decisions will be made by hhs and we will be following along to see where those doses actually go. his access equitable? i think that is -- is access equitable? when we have limited quality seville -- quantities available, how do you make sure they go to the right places at the right time and in an equitable way? host: in our last segment we talked about the group that is advising the cdc here, the advisory committee on .mmunization practices, a cit who gets to be on that? who are those folks? nott: the a cip is

government scientists. they are not appointees by political figures. the is a group really of fda's advisory committee. it is a group of nerds. that are going to come together come about a dozen of them, and decide the best way to figure out a game plan for how to allocate limited doses. that meeting should happen sometime in december. i think the details are still being worked out as far as when they will have enough data to finalize a decision. should health care workers get it first, should the elderly with comorbidities, or should other groups we prioritized? that is an independent group of experts. the leader that is jose romero from the university of arkansas, who chairs that committee. when you think about allocation

and distribution of the vaccine. bet: who decides who gets to on that committee? is it self-selecting or is there an appointment process? guest: i'm not 100% sure on that, to be honest. i think the cdc plays a role in choosing those rules, but i'm not 100% sure. in crawford, is maryland. independent. your next. covid-19,u know this scientists are still developing and learning about this and we have these vaccinations. is going to be a benchmark for things to get back to normal if people take this. it seems like without understanding the stability about this, is this really going to be a cure or is this just going to be similar to a flu shot where it mitigates it a little bit, minimizes the effect, and we know that

fact it, other than the has a higher infection rate, it is similar to the flu -- without a mandatory vaccination, how is it going to get ahead of it? we cannot mandate flu shots. i don't expect that america will be able to mandate these. i would just like your thoughts on that. this is not the cure-all, the end-all be-all. andrew dunn. guest: that's a good point. i have talked to a lot of developers and experts who agree with that overall sentiment, that the vaccine in and of itself is not a silver bullet out of the pandemic. in the interim, mask wearing and social distancing are going to be critically important to the topharmaceutical innovations limit transmission of the virus. you brought up some great points as far as unanswered questions about the vaccine. this is something the fda will have to be very upfront about in the early months, that we don't

know the durability of protection. modernity,pfizer and is promising as it is, seeing 95% protection from the covid-19 disease. that is just a couple weeks after getting the two-those regimen. we still don't know what happens in among, two months, six months, a year, if people need booster shots. a lot can happen in that time. we see it with the flu where every year there are different mutations, different strains to be vaccinated against. that means it is a real challenging virus to be immunized against. will we see that with covid? we have not seen troubling mutations so far. that is something that will definitely be top of mind in 20 want to see if a mutation can get around this vaccine and lower the effectiveness. that would be troubling. i would also say another point to bring up, these studies might

be run in the future, but these initial trials were not designed to test to see if they can prevent transmission. we were looking more for preventing severe disease or moderate disease, symptomatic covid-19. but there is still a chance you could get the vaccine and it could be highly effective. you still don't want to throw away your mas yourhe american people. host: on that messaging, as well as the distribution here and the approval, -- on that messaging and the approval, how much is that being impacted by is going to

be interesting to see how prepared, how seamless a transition that can be from one administration to the next in january. a couple things to watch for on that is what happens with operation warp speed. that is a big question in my mind. this is the coronavirus vaccine initiative that has been very ambitious, shepherding in cold billion dollars to administrators, putting the foot on the gas pedal as far as developing these vaccines. let's do the trial simultaneously instead of in a sequential order, and let's ramp up manufacturing before we know it works so that we have doses if it does prove successful. what does the biden administration want to do with operation warp speed? do they want to change leadership? those are unanswered questions that will be very important to follow in the next few months. and seeing if there are any hit ups -- any hiccups between the administrations will be something to watch fo