Federal officials are preparing for the swift rollout of the first coronavirus vaccine doses once the Food and Drug Administration authorizes one for public use.
Members of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine development initiative, told reporters Wednesday that as many as 100 million people could be vaccinated by the end of February, constituting a large portion of the vulnerable population.
“The investments we have made in scaling up and starting to stockpile manufacturing of the vaccines allow us to feel confident that we … will have potentially 100 million doses, which is really more or less the size of the significant at-risk population: the elderly, the healthcare workers,” Dr. Moncef Slaoui, head of Operation Warp Speed, said Thursday.
He was referring specifically to the leading vaccine candidates from Pfizer and Moderna that must be administered in two shots about three weeks apart.
The government vaccine development initiative Operation Warp Speed plans to distribute 40 million vaccine doses, enough for 20 million people, by the end of December. Slaoui said that in January, there will be enough vaccines to immunize 30 million more people, followed by another 50 million people immunized by the end of February.
“Our goal is to distribute within 24 hours after the [emergency use authorization],” Gen. Gus Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, told reporters. “Then, we want to maintain a deliberate, planned, coordinated cadence of delivery of vaccine as it becomes available.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that the first 170,000 doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine are expected to arrive in the state on Dec. 15. If the vaccine is authorized for public use by the Food and Drug Administration, healthcare workers and long-term care facility residents will start to get immunized. Cuomo said he expects the second round of 170,000 vaccine doses will arrive on schedule 21 days later.
New York’s first delivery of the Pfizer vaccine will be enough for 170,000 New Yorkers.
We expect, if all safety & efficacy approvals are granted, to receive these doses on December 15.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) December 2, 2020
The U.K. medicines regulators approved the Pfizer vaccine for public use on Thursday, making it the first Western country to approve a coronavirus vaccine. The first 800,000 doses of the vaccine, which is currently under FDA consideration in the United States, are expected to become available within a week.
“I would like to thank all those who have made this possible,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday when addressing members of Parliament. “It is the protection of vaccines that will ultimately allow us to reclaim our lives and get our economy moving again.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has modified the required quarantine time guidance to allow people to remain isolated for 10 and as few as seven days in an effort to boost public compliance. The agency still recommends that people quarantine for 14 days after being exposed to the virus, but people can leave quarantine after seven days if they have not experienced symptoms and can prove they have tested negative. After 10 days, they can leave quarantine if they have not experienced any symptoms, even without proof of a negative test.
“We believe that if we can reduce the burden, a little bit, accepting that it comes at a small cost, we may get a greater compliance overall with people … that will result in fewer infections,” Dr. Henry Walke, the CDC’s COVID-19 incident manager, told reporters Wednesday.
CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield warned that the next three months will be “the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation,” as the current surge in new cases and deaths across the U.S. is expected to worsen. He projected that deaths due to COVID-19 could climb to 450,000 by the end of February.
“We’re in that range potentially now, starting to see 1,500 to 2,000 to 2,500 deaths a day from this virus,” Redfield said. “The mortality concerns are real, and I do think, unfortunately, before we see February, we could be close to 450,000 Americans” dead due to the coronavirus.
To date, nearly 13.9 million infections and nearly 273,000 deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported in the U.S.
