Russia has registered world's first COVID-19 vaccine

Vladimir Putin says that Russia has registered the world's first COVID-19 vaccine. Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani shares the details.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: And the news out of Russia that there may be a vaccine, but Anjalee Khemlani, there are some real red flags with this news, right?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's correct, Adam. So we know that the vaccine has been approved by the health ministry in Russia and President Vladimir Putin has said that it is effective. But what we don't know is the details of the data. As we've seen the results of that clinical trials here in the US, we know that that is a key point in understanding the effectiveness of the vaccine. Now, what we do know is that, again, the federal government there is saying that it is, in fact, effective and will be distributed on a voluntary basis. The only side effects that we're seeing were a fever based on the president's own daughter taking that vaccine, but the scientific community is still asking for the data for this vaccine and whether or not-- to understand whether or not it truly is effective. We also know that the late stage clinical trials are still ongoing, so this has been approved before those results are known.

ADAM SHAPIRO: OK, so we know that worldwide, more than 20 million people have tested positive for the virus. Here in the United States, 5.1 million have tested positive, but there are some rays of hope or sunshine here in the USA. What's going on with cases?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: So cases, we have seen that there are some areas, some pockets that have been concerning in the past that have been reduced. Now, we also know that deaths have been, you know, a serious concern in the past several weeks. And the reason for a reduction in that area is definitely because we've seen some sort of at least normalized protocol when it comes to treating patients and dealing with patients, And That has helped as well.

So whether it is, you know, the cases going down, the social distancing, et cetera, all of the efforts that have been put in place working, we have definitely seen some of that. We know that New York already is looking for opening the new school year with students in place. And so as the trend continues, we're hoping to see that nationwide.