VOA常速英语:特朗普政府拒绝权力交接,疫苗分发遇阻

This is VOA news. Via remote, I'm Jim Bertel.U.S. projected President-elect Joe Biden is expressing frustration about U.S. President Donald Trump's refusal to cooperate on the White House transition process. AP's Sagar Meghani has more. Among other things, the Trump administration is not sharing its coronavirus vaccine distribution plans. Biden says his team needs them. "More people may die if we don't coordinate.” After remarks focused on repairing the nation's economy, Biden told reporters a key step is getting a vaccine to all Americans - a massive undertaking. "If we have to wait until January 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind over a month, month and a half.” He says a vaccine is of little use until people are actually vaccinated. Sagar Meghani, Washington

U.S. biotech firm Moderna on Monday announced its experimental vaccine against COVID-19. It is almost 95 percent effective, marking a second major breakthrough in the quest to end the pandemic. AP's Mike Hempen has more. Moderna says preliminary data from an ongoing study show its vaccine is nearly 95 percent effective. Last week, Pfizer announced its own COVID-19 vaccine appears similarly effective. Both companies are now on track to seek permission within weeks for emergency use in the U.S. Virus cases in the country topped 11 million over the weekend. Moderna President Dr. Stephen Hoge says having similar results from two different companies is most reassuring. Hoge says it's going to require many vaccines to meet global demand. I'm Mike Hempen. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization's chief scientist says they find the news about Moderna vaccine to be encouraging. "It appears that the vaccine actually has a protective efficacy of over 90 percent. It's about 94 percent. Of course we need to wait and see what the final efficacy and the safety profile of this vaccine will be ....” She says she remains optimistic the WHO will be (able to) work with many manufacturers to have a wide selection of vaccines as part of its global distribution plan.