At the one-year anniversary of the first detection in China of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the pathogen that causes Covid-19, there are now two highly effective vaccine candidates developed at a record pace. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Pfizer and BioNTech now say their vaccine is 95 percent effective and has cleared its trial benchmarks.

Just last week, Pfizer and BioNTech revealed that their experimental Covid-19 vaccine, called BNT162b2, was at least 90 percent effective in an early analysis. On Wednesday, the pharmaceutical and biotech companies reported that their vaccine was even better after it cleared more clinical trial benchmarks for safety and efficacy.

A press release out Wednesday from the two companies reports the results of 170 Covid-19 cases confirmed in their clinical trial pool: Eight in the group that received the vaccine got Covid-19 versus 162 in the placebo group, demonstrating