1. Answer the following about the article:
a) What is Operation Warp Speed?
b) Define placebo and efficacy rate as used in the article.
c) What is a clinical trial?
d) What is Emergency Use Authorization - who grants it?
e) What is Phase 3 of a clinical trial?

2. a) How effective did scientists hope a coronavirus vaccine might be?
b) How effective did Dr. Fauci say a vaccine needed to be to be acceptable?
c) How effective is the flu vaccine?
d) How effective is the Pfizer/BioNTech’s new coronavirus vaccine?

3. What is a Data Monitoring Committee’s role in the safety of any clinical trials?

4. a) The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses per person. How many people should be able to get the vaccine by the end of December?
b) Who will receive the vaccines in December - and then in January, as explained by HHS Secretary Alex Azar in the interview under “Resources” below?
c) How will the vaccine be distributed, according to Secretary Azar?

5. Soon after Pfizer’s announcement about their vaccine, Joe Biden said a coronavirus vaccine approval process must be guided by science so the public can have confidence it is safe and effective, warning that the United States is still facing a very dark winter and that a vaccine likely won't be available for months. What do you think of Mr. Biden’s reaction?

6. a) What is your reaction to this good news of an effective vaccine?
b) Would you get a vaccine as soon as it is made available? Why or why not? — Ask several friends and family members the same question.

7. New York’s Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, who first praised President Trump for his Covid-19 response and assistance to NY before harshly criticizing the president, said of Trump’s vaccine plan on Good Morning America Monday, that it was “flawed” and went so far as to declare: “We can’t let this vaccination plan go forward the way that Trump and his administration is designing it.” He also said, “The bad news is that it’s about two months before Joe Biden takes over, and this means [the Trump] administration is going to be implementing a vaccine plan.”

He also said the Biden administration would “depoliticize testing data” and “listen to the science, [which] is the exact opposite of Trump.”

The governor said of the Trump administration, “They’re basically going to have the private providers do it, and that’s going to leave out all sorts of communities that were left out the first time when COVID ravaged them.”

Cuomo has previously said he wants his own team of in-house experts to review a federally approved COVID-19 vaccine before distributing the drug to millions of New Yorkers, arguing that he doesn’t think the FDA and CDC’s recommendations are “safe.”

Do you think Gov. Cuomo is correct to distrust President Trump’s plan? Do you agree with his assertions? Explain your answer.