Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accepted the recommendation that Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine be administered across the country.
The Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use authorization for Pfizer and BioNTech’s two-stage coronavirus vaccine on Friday. On Saturday, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted in favor of allowing the vaccine to be given to people who are 16 and older in the United States.
Redfield accepted the committee’s recommendation Saturday night.
“As Covid-19 cases continue to surge throughout the US, CDC’s recommendation comes at a critical time. Initial Covid-19 vaccination is set to start as early as Monday, and this is the next step in our efforts to protect Americans, reduce the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and help restore some normalcy to our lives and our country,” he said in a statement.
More than 180,000 vials of the vaccine departed Pfizer’s Portage, Michigan, plant on Sunday to be distributed to 600 sites across the country, according to CNN.
The Pfizer vaccine is the fasted vaccine ever to be produced and administered in the U.S.
“It is indeed astounding in just the space of some 11 months we’ve gone from a recognition of a new pathogen to a vaccine that we know is safe and effective,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said during an interview with Meet the Press. “I think there have been few, if any, vaccines that have ever been subjected to this level of scrutiny.”
Moncef Slaoui, the head of the U.S’s coronavirus vaccine efforts, told Fox News that the government plans “to have immunized 100 million people” by the end of the first quarter of 2021.
“It’s actually a remarkable achievement of science and academia, industry, and the U.S. government system working relentlessly that has allowed this to happen,” Slaoui said.
The U.S. has reported more than 16 million cases of the COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S., like many countries across the globe, is in the middle of the worst surge in cases yet, with fears that holiday travel from Thanksgiving and upcoming winter festivities will only compound an already worsening situation. The U.S. reported more than 219,000 cases on Saturday alone, and to date, nearly 300,000 people have died.
