Hi, I'm Dan Pramak and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by Bridge Bank. Today's Wednesday,

September 9th. Tech stocks are back up. The number of U.S. troops in Iraq is going down,

and we're wondering what happens if there isn't a vaccine.

It seems to be an article of faith right now that at some point soon, we will have a vaccine for COVID-19. Maybe before the election, maybe after, but certainly by this time next year.

It's the reason why no one is talking about empty classrooms or football stadiums in September 2021.

But here's the thing. Making a vaccine is very, very hard work. And historically, a large

percentage of biotech efforts don't succeed. In fact, one reason pharma companies say drugs

costs so much is because that money helps

offset all of the money spent on failed efforts.

We were reminded of the sobering fact yesterday afternoon when Statt News reported that

AstraZeneca has quietly paused clinical trials for its COVID-19 vaccine after a patient appeared to come down with a rare

but serious neurological condition. To be clear, this doesn't mean the AstraZeneca vaccine is a bust.

In fact, Statt later reported that this was the second time its trials of pause. But vaccines

reaching phase three are no sure bets, particularly given that almost all of the efforts

right now, including by Moderna and Pfizer, are leveraging the same so-called spike protein,

which is kind of like the key in a key-in-lock system.

If introducing the spike protein were found to result in an adverse side effect, then

pharma's collective effort

could have many more troubles than just one sick patient.

The bottom line, the glass does remain more than half full, but it's not spilling over.

In 15 seconds, we'll go deeper with stat news reporter Adam Feuerstein, who helped break the

Astrosenica news.

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