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First entry: Saturday 12 December 2020, 07:47
U.S. health officials, transportation companies, and hospitals have been on hold since Friday night in anticipation of the immediate launch of an unprecedented mass immunization campaign, as the Federal Drug Administration (FDA ) has granted, as expected, a license to use the first vaccine against the new coronavirus in the country.
Preparations for the fever were underway as the death toll from the new coronavirus pandemic approached 300,000, after weeks of escalating infections and hospital admissions that have led to US state health systems.
Another 2,902 deaths were recorded on Thursday, a day after a record 3,253 deaths from COVID-19, and this nightmarish rate is expected to continue for the next two to three months, as the immunization campaign ramps up and increases the availability of vaccines.
The first vaccine is expected to be carried out in “less than 24 hours,” said Republican President Donald Trump, who has become the spearhead of the campaign to confront the pandemic that has changed daily life in the United States. and it has dealt a severe blow to the United States. economy, the largest in the world.
Moving at an unprecedented rate, the FDA yesterday approved the urgent use of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
The United States became the fifth country to give the green light (after Great Britain, Bahrain, Canada and Mexico). An FDA committee is expected to consider approving a second vaccine, Moderna, within the next week.
Other candidate vaccines are on the way as the United States prepares for an immunization campaign comparable to those against polio in the 1950s and 1960s.
UPS and FedEx say they are ready to ship millions of doses nationwide, complying with government contracts that state that they will give the highest priority to transporting vaccines on their planes and trucks. The police will provide security from the factories to the vaccination sites, even accompanying trucks that will distribute the doses.
In New York, a plan was announced for the creation of an immunization coordination center in front of the city hall next Monday, which will undertake the immediate distribution of quotas in the largest metropolis in the United States. Special emphasis will be placed on 27 neighborhoods inhabited by members of ethnic minorities that have been hit hard, explained Mayor Bill de Blasio, referring to a “unique” operation aimed at restoring “trust” and ensuring “equality.” In the distribution of the vaccine.
New York State expects 346,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine on Dec. 21, in addition to the 170,000 doses from Pfizer it plans to receive over the weekend, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.
Nursing and medical staff and the elderly are expected to be the first to be vaccinated. The initial lack of sufficient vaccines means that the general population will have to wait a long time, possibly months, before they are available for them. However, any American who wants to be vaccinated no later than May or June, according to Brett Girard, the US undersecretary of health.
However, concerns arise about the reservation of many Americans about vaccines in general: Only 61% say they are willing to get vaccinated, according to a survey by the Ipsos Institute and the Reuters news agency.
Meanwhile, case records are being broken, with more than 200,000 cases of SARS-CoV-2 confirmed in the past four days. In total, the cases as of Thursday, November 10, amounted to 15.6 million, according to data collected by Reuters. The death toll in the United States is expected to exceed 500,000 on April 1, modeled on the Institute for Health Assessment and Metrics at the University of Washington.
Source: ΑΠΕ
