US authorities announced today that the first covid-19 vaccine will begin arriving in the states on Monday morning.
According to Army General Gustave F. Perna, UPS and FedEx shipping companies will deliver the Pfizer vaccine to about 150 locations, with another 450 to receive the vaccine on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Gustave Perna, who is responsible for Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine development program, said it was scheduled for the vaccine to arrive on Monday morning for health professionals to receive and start administering it.
On Friday, the United States gave the green light to the first vaccine against covid-19, the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, and the first doses will be for health professionals and residents of nursing homes.
Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decision came shortly after the public review of data from an ongoing study, it came under political pressure from the Trump administration, which accused the agency of being too slow, threatening to even fire FDA director Stephen Hahn if the vaccine was not approved by Friday.
The decision now launches what will be the largest vaccination campaign in the history of the United States, but it also has global ramifications for being a model for many other countries, giving “hope to people in this situation where the pandemic is out of control, “he said to the Associated Press BioNTech’s executive director, Ugur Sahin.
“I don’t think they would find a scientist on this planet who predicted this 11 months ago,” said Paul Offit, an FDA adviser and vaccine specialist at the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital.
After approving the candidate for Pfizer and BioNTech, the United States is considering a second vaccine developed by the modern pharmaceutical company. In early January, Johnson & Johnson hopes to find out if its vaccine is also working in the final tests.
The European Union is also preparing to decide on vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna later this month.
On Friday, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, said in a video message that the covid-19 vaccine represents “one of the greatest scientific achievements in history”.
About 3 million doses of the vaccine are expected in the first tranches across the country, according to officials at Operation Warp Speed, and a similar amount should be kept in reserve for the second dose of the first people to be vaccinated.
The government is still finalizing the final recommendations, but other essential workers, the elderly and other at-risk groups are expected to accompany health professionals and home users in the priority groups.
Assuming there are no shortcomings in vaccine production, US officials do not anticipate that there will be sufficient doses for the general population before spring.
“We would need, at least, until March or April to have an impact on the pandemic,” said the executive director of BioNTech.
The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 1,595,276 deaths resulting from more than 71 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report made by the French agency AFP.
The United States is the country with the most deaths (295,539) and also with the most confirmed cases of infection (more than 15.8 million).
