US may receive first Covid vaccine doses by mid-December

The head of the US government’s covid vaccine effort is saying that the first vaccine doses may be shipped by mid-December. Moncef Slaoui, the head of a federal vaccine development program, made the comments just 2 days after Pfizer and BioNTech applied for emergency vaccine use approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, after their versions of the vaccines indicated results showing that it was 95% effective. Moderna, another company has also said its vaccine is 94.5% effective. Slaoui also is in charge of a federal program that increases manufacturing of such promising vaccines as they are developed.

“Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunisation sites within 24 hours from the approval. So I expect maybe on day two after approval on December 11 or 12.”

The news of a vaccine becoming available comes on the heels of US states seeing a surge in Covid cases, partly due to the winter weather, as colder temperatures are seeing more and more people fall ill. In the state of Texas, the National Guard deployed 36 people to El Paso to help with its overflowing morgue operations. The US retains its place at the top in regards to having the highest number of Covid cases in the world.

But travellers are still filling the airports over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, as they shun the warnings from health officials to stay home and isolate. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, says the number of travellers was concerning, stating that they were “going to get us into even more trouble than we’re in right now.”

Fauci says that maybe 20 million people could possible receive the new vaccine by the end of the year.

“More people may die if we don’t coordinate.”