 We are now seeing upwards of 100,000 new COVID-19 cases per day, and it is the worst it's ever been. Contrary to what Donald Trump and the Republicans said, it's not going to go away after the election. Whoever said that, like Eric Trump, they're idiots. Like whoever thought that this worldwide pandemic would suddenly go away after the election. Like it's a worldwide conspiracy all to make Joe Biden look better and Donald Trump look worse. Like this type of thinking is idiotic, but nonetheless, it's getting worse. Contrary to, I hope, not popular belief, but contrary to what some imbeciles were saying. However, finally, we got a little bit of good news, a little bit of a glimmer of hope that maybe we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, because vaccine trials are showing very promising results. So as Sam Meredith of CNBC reports, Pfizer and BioNTech announced Monday their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 among those without evidence of prior infection, hailing the development as a great day for science and humanity. I think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Pfizer chairman and CEO Dr. Albert Borla told CNBC's Meg Terrell on Squawk Box. I believe this is likely the most significant medical advance in the last 100 years. If you count the impact this will have in public health, global economy. The announcement comes as drug makers and research centers scramble to deliver a safe and effective vaccine to help bring an end to the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed over 1.2 million lives worldwide. Scientists are hoping for a coronavirus vaccine that is at least 75% effective, while White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has said one that is 50 or 60% effective would be acceptable. Pfizer's results were based on the first interim efficacy analysis conducted by an external and independent data monitoring committee from the Phase 3 clinical study. The independent group of experts oversees US clinical trials to ensure the safety of participants. The analysis evaluated 94 confirmed COVID-19 infections among the trials, 43,538 participants. Pfizer and the United States pharmaceutical giants German BioNTech partners said the case split between vaccinated individuals and those who received a placebo indicated a vaccine efficacy rate of above 90% at seven days after the second dose. It means that protection from COVID-19 is achieved 28 days after the initial vaccination, which consists of a two-dose schedule. The final vaccine efficacy percentage may vary, however, as safety and additional data continue to be collected. So this is incredible news, obviously, really, really good news. And it comes at a time when we are seeing spikes in cases, more deaths, a thousand people dying per day, a thousand plus people dying per day. And we need some hope at this moment. The question, however, remains, how long will this immunity last? That is yet to be determined because we don't know. We don't have a long-term analysis of this vaccine. Another question is how long will it take until it's widely available and will it be affordable? These are all questions that are important because this will determine whether or not this virus or this vaccine, rather, is going to be able to effectively wipe out this virus. Now, in terms of the latter question, it does seem as if it will be affordable, at least for Americans, because as CNN's Caitlin Collins reports, Pfizer CEO Albert Borla tells Dr. Sanjaya Gupta, the vaccine will be available for free to all American citizens. Now, this is phenomenal news because the United States is the only developed country that does not have some sort of universal health care plan. However, when he says it's going to be free to all Americans, that worries me a little bit because I want a little bit more specificity. Is it going to just be free to all Americans or will it be free to everyone throughout the world? Because if it's only free to Americans, then we're not wiping out the virus because we're only as strong as our weakest link. So if you leave out a particular country, it's still going to be an issue. So there's a lot that we don't have answers to yet. All we know is that the preliminary results are everything that we'd hoped for better than what we'd hoped for, actually. Now, in terms of when this is going to become widely available, well, President-elect Joe Biden isn't as optimistic as I would have hoped at a COVID press briefing. He talked about this and claims that it's not actually going to be widely available until quite some time. It's clear that this vaccine, even if approved, will not be widely available for many months yet to come. The challenge before us right now is still immense and growing. And although we are not in office yet, I'm just laying out what we expect to do and hope can be done. Some of it between now and the time we were sworn in. But so the purpose of this is to let you know what we're going to do once sworn in. And so there's a need for bold action to fight this pandemic. We're still facing a very dark winter. There are now nearly 10 million COVID cases in the United States. Last week, we topped 120,000 new cases on multiple successive days. Infection rates are going up, hospitalizations are going up, deaths are going up. This crisis claimed nearly a thousand American lives a day. And nearly 240,000 deaths so far. Protecting the projections still indicate we could lose 200,000 more lives in the coming months before a vaccine can be made widely available. So we can't forego the important work that needs to be done between now and then to get our country through the worst wave yet in this pandemic. So he's correct that this isn't going to be widely available right away. First, it's going to be administered to people who are the most vulnerable individuals who are elderly with some sort of preexisting condition that is going to make the virus more deadly for them. Healthcare workers, first responders, they are all going to be the ones who get this vaccine first if this is in fact the candidate that we all go with throughout the world. But in terms of like when the average person can go out and get this vaccine, it's going to be a while, it's going to be months. And I'm not banking on anything before mid 2021. And I think that's kind of a more optimistic prediction. And I don't know, I'm not an expert. I'm just saying that it's going to take some time and we have to be cognizant of that fact. But still, it is important that we see a really promising vaccine that could be available. That's that's great news. And I think that we allow ourselves the opportunity to celebrate, be a little bit optimistic. Don't inject too much hope into your veins just yet, but acknowledge that this is some good news. The pandemic isn't going to be with us forever. And we're starting to see that there is a little bit of hope, a little bit of hope. Now, in that same press briefing, Joe Biden, I think, made the most important point when he said that right now, the best tool that we have to combat the spread of this virus is masks. And I hope that once he becomes president, more people are going to want to wear masks if we have someone who is, you know, in power, the most powerful person who's trying to reinforce the importance of masks. But who knows, we don't necessarily know about that. We already see Donald Trump basically make it seem as if the announcement of this vaccine trials results is political because it happened after the election. I mean, this is all to be expected. One thing that's interesting is Mike Pence basically broke his public silence after losing this election and tried to claim credit for this vaccine. Honestly, even though neither administration gets credit for this, because this isn't anything that they've done personally, part of me wants to let Mike Pence take credit for this, as word as that may sound, because what we're dealing with now is the situation where Trump supporters and Republicans may not feel inclined to take a vaccine that they think comes from Joe Biden, even if it does get FDA approval. So the way to get them to take this vaccine possibly is to get them to think that this is something that Trump delivered to them. If we can get them to think that, then maybe they'll be more inclined to take the vaccine. I don't know, but whatever is going to get them to take the vaccine, that's really important because we've talked through, you know, when is this going to be widely available? Additionally, how much will it cost? And these are all important questions, but another factor is the political factor, the social factor that we haven't even begin to contemplate. How many people are going to want to take this vaccine? That, again, is going to be key because if we have this vaccine that's highly effective available, even if it's cheap and widely available, if people don't take it, it's not going to do anything. So there's still a lot that we have to consider. There's a long road ahead of us and lots of destruction and deaths until we get to this point where we get this under control. But still, it's a tiny, tiny little glimmer of hope for now that we desperately need. And it's nice to feel a little bit of hope again, even if I am cautiously optimistic.