A nurse holds a vial of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, in London earlier this week. Meals and Drug Administration officers within the U.S. sought to reassure the general public in regards to the vaccine Saturday after authorizing it for emergency use.
Frank Augstein/AP
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Frank Augstein/AP
A nurse holds a vial of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, in London earlier this week. Meals and Drug Administration officers within the U.S. sought to reassure the general public in regards to the vaccine Saturday after authorizing it for emergency use.
Frank Augstein/AP
Up to date at 12:50 p.m. ET
Now that the Meals and Drug Administration has licensed a COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, federal officers are mobilizing behind an unlimited effort to distribute the vaccine as quickly as doable. Military Gen. Gustave Perna, chief working officer of Operation Warp Pace, mentioned Saturday that distribution of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine has begun.
Throughout a information convention, Perna defined that delivery containers with the vaccine are already being packed at a Pfizer facility.
“Inside the subsequent 24 hours, they are going to start transferring vaccine from the Pfizer manufacturing facility to the united statesand FedEx hubs, after which it’ll exit to the 636 places nationwide which have been recognized by the states and territories,” Perna informed reporters.
“We anticipate 145 websites throughout all of the states to obtain vaccine on Monday, one other 425 websites on Tuesday, and the ultimate 66 websites on Wednesday, which is able to full the preliminary supply of the Pfizer orders.”
His announcement got here roughly 12 hours after the FDA formally granted an emergency use authorization to the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
With the inexperienced mild, the U.S. grew to become certainly one of only a handful of nations — together with the U.Okay. and Canada — to permit widespread distribution of the two-dose vaccine, which medical trials have proven to be 95% efficient at stopping the coronavirus.
State governors and well being departments have submitted plans for a way the vaccine will probably be allotted. These plans give preliminary precedence to 2 teams: front-line well being care staff and residents at long-term care amenities, the place Perna estimates that many residents will probably begin receiving doses towards the top of subsequent week.
He additionally mentioned that as early as three weeks from now, the federal government will have the ability to ship the Pfizer vaccine to all suppliers that states have designated for distribution. The overall added that, by the top of the yr, he expects there will probably be sufficient shipments of the two-dose vaccine to immunize 20 million individuals.
“Whereas in the present day we applaud everyone who’s been part of the group, a part of the collaboration, a part of the success that introduced us right here in the present day, we all know that we’re not achieved,” Perna mentioned. “We’re not achieved till each American has entry to the vaccine, till each American that wishes it, receives it. That is our solely objective. We work daily to attain it.”
Well being officers have cautioned that getting the vaccine to each American who desires one is a course of that would stretch effectively into 2021. And even because the vaccine reaches its supposed places, federal officers may even be grappling with one other problem: bolstering public confidence in getting it. Towards that finish, FDA chief Stephen Hahn pledged to be among the many first to have it administered.
“I do know the meticulousness of the evaluation that the FDA has achieved,” Hahn mentioned at a separate briefing Saturday. “I’ll completely take this COVID-19 vaccine, pending availability and distribution, as a result of I’ve full belief and confidence within the FDA’s profession workers’s analysis.”
The authorization of the Pfizer vaccine represents a significant milestone within the struggle in opposition to the coronavirus within the U.S. — although it’s unlikely to be the final vaccine to be licensed and distributed. A vaccine produced by Moderna, which has been proven 94% efficient, is predicted to obtain the FDA’s emergency authorization inside per week or two, as effectively.
