A few days after Pfizer announced its anti-COVID vaccine with over 90% effectiveness, Moderna Inc announced its experimental drug with 94.5% prevention efficacy on COVID-19. The two drug makers have announced drugs that far exceed expectations.

The new vaccine has offered hope to the world ravaged by pandemic, especially Africa; where hot temperature would not be a barrier for its storage. The vaccine remains stable in conventional refrigerators for a month and an ordinary freezer for six months, under temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 48?F).

Unlike Moderna, Pfizer’s vaccine must be stored at -70c before delivery, making it difficult to be administered in countries with hotter climes.

Both vaccines were developed with new technology known as messenger RNA (mRNA), and showed more than expected results in clinical trials.

“The results of this trial are truly striking,” says Anthony Fauci, the director of US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, and the vaccines co-developer. He told reporters several months ago that he would be satisfied with a vaccine that was 70% or 75% effective, and one that prevented 95% of cases would be “aspirational”.

Moderna was one of the first developers to announce that it was working on a COVID-19 vaccine and to move testing to clinical trials in humans. It began a phase III trial that enrolled roughly 30,000 people in July, according to scientific magazine Nature.

At the news of its trial success, Moderna’s shares jumped 8% while the Dow climed 1.6%, the S&P 500 rose 1.17% and Nasdaq gained 0.8%. European markets rose too.

Pfizer and BioNTech shares plunged 4.3% and 16.4% respectively, following the news that Moderna doesn’t need colder temperatures to be preserved.

The tumultuous crisis of COVID-19 is taking a higher toll in the US and Europe, spiking the desperation of the Western countries to have as much of the vaccine as possible.

Moderna is part of the US government’s Operation Warp speed program. The company is expected to produce about 20 million doses for the United States this year. The company said it has already made millions of doses and would ship it if it gets FDA’s approval.

“Assuming we get an emergency use authorization, we’ll be ready to ship through Warp Speed almost in hours so it could start being distributed instantly,” Moderna president Stephen Hoge said.

In Europe, Britain has secured 5 million doses of Moderna according to a statement issued by health minister Matt Hancock on Monday.

“We have today secured an initial agreement for 5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine,” he said.

While many countries are yet to indicate interest in the vaccine, economies around the world could heave a sigh of relief as the availability of the vaccine would mean that the most affected businesses, such as the aviation and hospitality would spring back to life.

But there are still unanswered questions and uncertainties about the vaccine. It is not clear how long the vaccine’s protective effects last; whether it can block people from transmitting the virus; or whether the vaccine works as well in higher-risk groups such as older adults. Moderna reported that, of the 95 cases, 15 were in people over 65, but it didn’t say which arm of the trial these participants were in.

However, the percentage of success in the trials offered hope beyond expectation, and started a vehicle of recovery for ravaged economies and the disrupted global supply chain.

China and Russia have already begun to vaccinate, and with the availability of Pfizer, Sputnik and Moderna vaccines, a large part of the world’s population could be covered by mid next year, if less affluent countries are given access to the vaccines.

While concentration lies on the US and Europe, where the pandemic is still much active, other countries with quite a record of high numbers will become a setback to the total elimination of the virus if they don’t have access to vaccines.

With over 55 million infected around the world, global access to vaccine is necessary to contain the spread of the virus.

Moderna has the capacity to produce more than one billion doses, which will serve the 330 million US population with leftovers of over 700 million. Pfizer vaccine’s storage limitation has made it exclusive to countries with temperate weather, which means, Africa is excluded. So far, a combination of Moderna, Russia’s Sputnik which is said to be also over 90% effective offers hope to disadvantaged countries.

While there is hope that many vaccines under trial will be approved in the near future, a global synergy is required for strategic distribution of the available vaccines, especially for dependent countries with enormous populations like Nigeria.

Being educated is not only about passing through a formal classroom. Education is more than that. But unfortunately (though fortunately for some people), education is attributed to literacy. So when you hear many people say they are educated, they actually mean they can read and write or that they passed through formal schools (usually higher institutions). In other words, once you are a literate, you are (or you are supposed to be) educated. Of course, this belief is a supposition because it is not always true. In fact, it is rarely true. This is why we have a lot of uneducated intelligent literates in every corner of the world.

Literacy is just one of the aspects of education. It is one of the things an educated person is expected to possess. Of course, before the invention of writing, man was educated. But nowadays, literacy is one of the yardsticks for measuring people’s level of education. All I am trying to say here is that being a literate is a sign that someone passed through formal education. Nevertheless, an illiterate cannot be said to be uneducated. It is possible that he had another type of education, which had nothing to do with learning the symbols that represent sounds in his language. So, the desirable qualities of education mentioned in this essay is not reserved for only those that can read and write but for every human, who has received trainings and passed through experiences that have formed and reformed him.

• Self-Esteem

One of the qualities of an educated person is healthy self-esteem. He is never self-conceited. Even with his abundant ideas and knowledge, he is never arrogant or wishes to be worshiped. He acknowledges that he has the knowledge but he understands that others have higher knowledge. The good thing about this person is he rarely feels he’s being looked down because his submission is challenged (he understands that everyone won’t agree with him). He allows the opinion of others and never undermines them. The way he respects himself is the way he does to others. This quality is actually rare these days because people that have a little knowledge seek for fans and worshipers; pity.

• Desire to Grow

Training and experiences teach an educated person that knowledge is unlimited: he can never know it all. This person appreciates the fact that he is a learner even in the grave. This quality makes people like this seek for more knowledge – the more he learns, the more he finds out there are so many things he didn’t know. It is this quality that causes them to listen, learn, unlearn, relearn, assimilate and analyse. This quality makes them realise that two different persons may not view a phenomenon from the same angle. This is actually the quality that turns them into experts. Of course, the opposite is always the case with an uneducated person, be he a literate or not.

• Analytical Abilities

Unless a person understands the true nature of unbiased research, he will fail to solve existing problems. The good thing about educated people is that by describing what is happening around them, they predict solutions to existing problems. They are never quick to judge or conclude and they don’t believe in surface value. Somehow, they understand the complexities of human nature and apply them to situations. And they are never wrong. This quality is why Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and the rest are still cited today and their submissions still applied to the study of present day predicaments. These people developed their analytical skills through education; a quality many literates lack.

• Desirable Characters

You must have noticed there are some characters that when people exhibit, they will be called uneducated (or illiterate). A person’s poise, or lack of, tells a lot about his level of education. Usually, when people are passing through some forms of training, their characters are also formed. In schools, teachers do not condone lateness, noise, lies, laziness, haughtiness, rudeness, and what have you. They chastise students that exhibit these characters so that they drop them as time goes by. To a large extent, the positive characters people picked up from school follow them all through life unless they chose to drop them along the way.

Education is a continuous process; it doesn’t end. When you realise there is something you are not doing well, instead of continuing with it, you drop it. That is also education. So as you gather knowledge in your field and acquire several professional skills for your place of work, remember to reform yourself. That is what education is all about.