In the race to end the coronavirus pandemic, the more safe, effective vaccines we have available, the sooner well be able to climb out of this mess.

So far, five vaccines produced by Moderna, Pfizer, Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca are the front-runners. In the coming months, these vaccines will not only save tons of lives, but they will also alleviate some of the overwhelming pressure on the health care system and provide our frontline workers with some much-needed rest.

Below, where we dissect the leading vaccines, youll notice the shots efficacy levels range from 66% to 95%. While that may seem like a huge gap, its worth noting that comparing vaccine efficacy levels is kind of like comparing apples to oranges, according to Onyema Ogbuagu , an infectious disease specialist at Yale Medicine and principal investigator of Yales Pfizer COVID-19 trial.

Some of these vaccines (like Johnson & Johnsons) were tested in areas where more contagious variants have taken hold, such as South Africa, whereas Modernas and Pfizers vaccines were tested before the variants identified in the U.K. and South Africa struck and began spreading like wildfire.

The biggest takeaway is that while the vaccines differ in how well they prevent symptomatic disease, so far nobody who has taken any of these vaccines have died or been hospitalized due to COVID-19. Preventing severe disease is something all the shots do well, so even imperfect vaccines will prove invaluable in our quest to end the pandemic.

Heres a basic breakdown on each of the leading COVID-19 immunization options:

Pfizer/BioNTech