IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO OVERSTATE DEFLATIONARY PRESSURES:

How do these vaccines work?

Up to now, vaccines have introduced the immune system to a benign version of a virus or bacteria, priming it to recognize and fight the real pathogen if and when it strikes. Vaccines for measles, polio, the flu, and other infectious diseases use parts of or entire viruses that have been weakened or inactivated. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are based on a novel approach. They rely on a snippet of genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA, that is encased in a tiny, protective bubble of fat. Messenger RNA, sometimes called "the software of life," is usually made by DNA to carry instructions to other parts of the cell to make proteins. The vaccine makers constructed this specific form of RNA using the genetic sequence for the coronavirus, which was decoded back in January. That's how they were able to create a viable vaccine with a speed that shattered the previous record of about four years. Moderna went from obtaining the genetic sequence to inoculating the first test subject in just 63 days. [...]

How well do these vaccines work?

Phenomenally well, so far. The benchmark for FDA approval is an efficacy rate of 50 percent, roughly the average of what flu vaccines achieve. Early results for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines show about 95 percent efficacy, including for those over 65 -- a game-changing result. "It makes it now clear that vaccines will be our way out of this pandemic," says Kanta Subbarao, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Melbourne. 

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