“This is also an amazing trick,” Drs. Amanda Cohn, executive secretary for the CDC Advisory Committee on Vaccination Practices, said at a committee meeting Sunday. “We hope they will continue to increase productivity, as well as having the potential to produce new products early next year. “
But while the U.S. is awaiting the release of vaccines for more of the public, they must struggle with the potential increase of winter holidays.
More than a million Americans passed through airport security checkpoints both Friday and Saturday – the first time since the outbreak began. Things are spinning after Thanksgiving travel and gatherings, and experts warn that repeating the behavior at Christmas time could cause a surge to rise.
Another such increase is something that Tennessee cannot sustain, Gov. Bill Lee said Sunday.
“Tennesseans have two weapons that they have to use in the next 30 days: just gather with your family and wear a mask,” Lee said.
Illinois receives nearly 1 million cases
In a time of unprecedented coronavirus outbreaks, three states have crossed the gloomy threshold of more than a million cases: California, Texas and Florida.
On Sunday, Illinois took a step closer to entering that list as it has surpassed 900,000 cases since the outbreak began, the state department of public health said in a news release.
New York, once the epicenter of the pandemic in the U.S., is hoping to ease its own path. Starting Monday, long-term care facilities in the state will begin receiving vaccines, Gareth Rhodes, a special adviser to the state department of financial services, said in a news release Friday.
Across the state, 618 long-term care facilities are registered to provide staff with CVS and Walgreens providing vaccines to residents and employees, Rhodes said.
New Jersey will administer its nursing home vaccines Dec. 28, after state officials missed a federal deadline to register their facilities, New Jersey Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said.
“To start on the 21st, there was a 7th deadline to submit the registered skilled nursing facilities, long-term care facilities, supported living facilities, which we have about … over 650. We lost that date. , before the day, “she said, citing the amount of information needed.
Slaoui believes that vaccines remain effective after virus modification
Although both the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine have shown efficacy levels of around 95% in clinical trials, there is growing concern as to whether the vaccines would work on new variants of the coronavirus. – as a UK distributor.
Top health officials say many remain unaware of the opposite, and to reduce its spread The growing list of countries has banned travel from the UK, including Canada, Argentina, Israel, Germany and France.
Army Research Institute scientist Walter Reed is investigating the variant and hopes to know in the next few days if there are concerns that vaccines may not work against it.
But “so far, I don’t think one variant has been against the vaccine,” Slaoui laments. “We can’t ban it, but it doesn’t exist now.”
He said the novel coronavirus may be likely to be different. But essential aspects of the virus, such as the vaccine-involved spike protein, are highly specific to the novel coronavirus and unlike many concerns.
“Because the vaccines use antibodies against many different parts of the spike protein, the chances of them all changing are, I think, low,” Slaoui said.
Correction: An earlier version of the story and this headline misrepresented Admiral Health Secretary Admiral Brett Giroir ‘s views on vaccine distribution. Health officials are working to get enough doses to disperse 20 million people by the first week of January. He did not promise that 20 million people would be included by then.
CNN’s Virginia Langmaid, Raja Razek, Pete Muntean, Jacqueline Howard Melissa Alonso, Hollie Silverman, Naomi Thomas and Gisela Crespo contributed to this report.