(Newswire.net — December 13, 2020) —
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that they are allowing emergency use of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and their German partner BioNTech. This is a turning point in the battle against the corona virus, since in the United States alone there have been 305.000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Donald Trump posted a video on Twitter on Friday announcing the shipment and distribution of the vaccine that is expected to be available in all 50 states on Monday. “Today our nation has achieved a medical miracle,” Trump said in the video, adding “It will save millions of lives and end the pandemic once and for all”.
An advisory committee of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted on Saturday on the use of the vaccine for people over the age of 16, just one day after emergency use authorization was granted.
In order to properly store and ship the vaccines, they must be kept at a temperature of -94 degrees while in transit. The first 184.275 doses are being shipped in 20-foot-long containers that were modified with additional insulation. Originally used to ship tuna, which is stored on -76 degrees, the containers have had their refrigeration systems adjusted making them even colder.
General Gustave Perna announced that “we expect 145 sites across all states to receive the vaccine on Monday, another 425 sites on Tuesday, and the final 66 sites on Wednesday”. Gen. Perna is the chief operating officer of the government’s initiative called Operation Warp Speed. The sites intended to receive the shipments are pharmacies, hospitals and clinics, which already possess ancillary kits with syringes, dilatants and other supplies.
Wider impact of the immunization process isn’t expected until we are well into 2021. Ugur Sahin, BioNTech CEO and creator of the corona virus vaccine, says he expects the results of the immunization to kick in over the summer, and normal life to return to normal by next winter.