The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said potentially lifesaving vaccinations to fight against COVID-19 could be distributed before the end of 2020.
Director Robert Redfield said he anticipates the first series of vaccinations to fight COVID-19 will be distributed “by the end of the second week of December.”
He added that healthcare workers across the United States are “unfortunately” seeing a spike in hospitalizations, but he wanted to “remind the American public that we’re not defenseless” against COVID-19 in an interview with Fox News host Dana Perino on Tuesday.
Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca have each announced clinical trials showing their vaccines to be more than 90% effective against the disease. Pfizer and Moderna are expected to file for emergency authorization with the Food and Drug Administration by the end of November.
Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser to the White House’s COVID-19 vaccine development team, said on Sunday that people could get the vaccine within 48 hours of it being approved by the FDA.
Redfield said that while “hope’s on the way” in regard to the vaccines, people need to remain steadfast in their adherence to recommendations.
“Over the next, you know, two, four, six, eight, 10, 12 weeks for many Americans, we still need to really be vigilant about these mitigation steps and stop the debate about whether they work or not,” Redfield said.
He said there was “clear evidence” that masks help mitigate the spread of the disease and noted that the data taken from K-12 schools that have reopened shows that places of learning have not been “a source of significant outbreaks.”
“When we’ve gone into schools to evaluate the kids that are infected or the teachers that are infected, it turns out the teachers got infected from the community … maybe their spouses and their family.”
More than 250,000 people have died of the coronavirus in the U.S., and over 12 million people have been infected with the disease since the outbreak began in March, according to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker.
