OLIVE BRANCH, Miss. (AP) – Original shipments of the second U.S.-authorized COVID-19 vaccine left a release center Sunday, a much-needed boost as the country works to control the pandemic of coronavirus infection .
The trucks left the Memphis area factory with the vaccine developed by Moderna Inc. and the National Institutes of Health. The required photographs are due to be released starting Monday, just three days after the Food and Drug Administration approved their urgent release.
Also on Sunday, a committee of experts began discussing who should respond to early doses of the Moderna vaccine and a similar one from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech from Germany. Pfizer photos were first released a week ago and began using them the next day, starting the largest vaccination campaign in the country.
Public health experts say the scenes – and others in the pipeline – are the only way to stop a virus that has been spreading wildly. Nationwide, more than 219,000 people per day are tested positive for the virus, which has killed at least 314,000 in the U.S. and up from 1.7 million worldwide.
The Pfizer and Moderna photos posted so far and going out over the next few weeks almost go to health care workers and long-term care home residents , based on the advice of the Vaccine Practices Advisory Committee.
There will not be enough views for the general population until spring, so doses will be rationed at least for the coming months. President Joe Biden promised earlier this month that 100 million doses of vaccine would be dispensed in his first 100 days in office, and his surgeon general candidate said Sunday that it remains a reasonable goal. .
But Vivek Murthy, speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said it was more reasonable to think it could be mid-summer or early fall before coronavirus vaccines become available to the general public. space, rather than late spring. Murthy said that Biden ‘s team is working to get the pictures to people at lower risk by the end of the spring but in doing so “everything has to go according to schedule. ”
“I think it’s more reasonable to think that it could be closer to mid-summer or early fall when this vaccine will make its way to the general public,” Murthy said. “So we want to be optimistic, but we also want to be careful.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s chief surgeon, Jerome Adams, defended the administration’s handling of the Pfizer vaccine on Sunday, a day after the Army’s general accusation of receiving COVID-19 vaccines across the U.S. apologized Saturday for “miscommunication” with states over the number of doses to be delivered in the early stages of circulation. At least a dozen states said they would receive a second smaller batch of the Pfizer vaccine than had previously been announced.
Gen. said. Gustave Perna told reporters in a phone message that he made mistakes by naming numbers of doses he believed would be ready.
But Adams, referring to CBS’s “Face the Nation,” said “the numbers are going up and down.”
“It wasn’t a bad design at all,” he said. “That’s what we’re planning. That is what we satisfy. There is what is delivered, and then what is put is in the arms of men. “
Adams, who is black, said he understands that trust in the medical community and the vaccine among Blacks “comes from a real place,” the mistreatment of colored communities. He cited the decades-long Tuskegee trial in Alabama, where black men with syphilis were not treated until the disease could be diagnosed.
He also said that immigrants in the US should not be denied the vaccine because of their legal status because “it is not morally right to refuse such people. ”
Experienced panel members are moving to put “critical workers” next line, as people such as bus drivers, grocery store clerks and others are generally infected. But other experts say people 65 and older should be next, along with people with certain medical conditions, because these are the Americans who are dying at the highest rates.
The advice of the panel of experts is almost always endorsed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Whatever the CDC says, there will be differences from state to state, as different health departments have different views on who should be closer to the front of the line.
Both the Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech pill require two doses several weeks apart. The second dose must be from the same company as the first. Both vaccines showed safe and strong protection in large, unfinished studies.
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