For months, we all waited for news that there would be an effective COVID-19 vaccine. Now that there are a couple vaccines available, people who are eligible for the vaccine have been lining up waiting for their turn to get vaccinated.

You probably know a few people who have already gotten vaccinated. These are most likely health care workers, first responders and senior citizens. Maybe you were even lucky enough to get the vaccine yourself.

Should we have to consider ourselves “lucky” in order to get a vaccine for COVID-19? Thankfully, there’s some very good news that might help speed up the vaccine roll out and make it possible for more people to get vaccinated faster.

The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is currently labeled that it needs to be stored at negative 76 degrees to negative 112 degrees for up to 6 months. That is much colder than a normal freezer at a pharmacy. Now, there’s some good news. Pfizer announced in a press release that their vaccine actually can be stored in a typical pharmacy freezer.

Pfizer has submitted new data to the FDA that shows “the stability of their COVID-19 vaccine when stored at -25°C to -15°C (-13°F to 5°F), temperatures more commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers and refrigerators. The data have been submitted to the FDA to support a proposed update to the U.S. Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) Prescribing Information, which would allow for vaccine vials to be stored at these temperatures for a total of two weeks as an alternative or complement to storage in an ultra-low temperature freezer.”

Another piece of good news is that the vaccine is actually 85% effective after just one dose. For more details about this good news, watch the video below.

Does it surprise you that the COVID-19 vaccine is so effective after just one dose? Do you think the focus should switch to vaccinating more people with one dose instead of making sure there is enough of the vaccine available for everyone to get the second dose?