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(CNN) – On Wednesday, Canada’s health department approved an emergency coronavirus vaccine for its own country, a day before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration meets to decide whether to do the same.
Health Canada determined that the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine for Covid-19 meets the department’s safety, efficacy and quality requirements for use in Canada, the department said Wednesday. The decision is made a week after the UK approved the vaccine there.
More details from Health Canada are expected to be announced later on Wednesday, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week that Canada would receive an initial shipment of 249,000 doses by the end of the year and expected Canada’s first vaccines to occur at some point. in the next week.
Meanwhile, in the United States, an official said that Covid-19 vaccines would be distributed to vulnerable populations within days of any decision to authorize them.
The FDA will meet Thursday to discuss whether to grant emergency use authorization (US) for the candidate vaccine Pfizer / BioNTech in the US A decision could come within days of that meeting, officials say.
The gathering comes as coronavirus hospitalizations in the US and average daily cases are at their highest.
After any USA is done, “we will begin to get gunfire within 96 hours of that decision,” Gen. Gustave Perna, director of operations for the government’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine initiative, said Tuesday. federal. “That’s what I believe with all my heart.”
The FDA also intends to deliberate on a separate candidate vaccine, from Moderna, on December 17.
Assuming the vaccines are approved, “20 million people should be vaccinated in the next few weeks,” the US Secretary of Health and Human Services told CNN on Wednesday.
Governors are prioritizing who would get vaccinated first in their states, although healthcare workers and the most vulnerable, including residents of long-term care facilities, are expected to be first in line.
In the United States, Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are on the rise.
The United States has averaged 206,152 new cases per day for the past seven days, the nation’s highest average in the pandemic so far.
And 104,600 Covid-19 patients were reported in U.S. hospitals on Tuesday, also a high level for the pandemic, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
The average number of daily deaths from coronavirus in the country over a week (2,230) is close to the highest average of 2,241 on April 24, data from Johns Hopkins University shows. In all, more than 286,300 people in the United States have died from the virus.
More than 15.1 million official cases of Covid-19 have been reported, according to JHU data, although researchers believe the actual number of infections is much higher.
If vaccine approvals go as expected, potentially even for other manufacturers early next year, the general American public could start to see vaccines available in February and March, Azar said on CNN’s “New Day” show Wednesday. .
The White House coronavirus task force has warned that current vaccination plans would not reduce the spread of Covid-19 until at least late spring.
UK asks people with severe allergies to refrain from Pfizer vaccine for now
People with a “significant history of allergic reactions” should not receive the Pfizer / BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, UK health authorities said on Wednesday, after two healthcare workers had allergic reactions after receiving one. injection.
The UK, which has already approved the vaccine, began giving it to thousands of people there on Tuesday.
The new allergy cautionary advice came after two health workers “responded adversely” to their vaccinations on Tuesday, England’s National Health Service said Wednesday.
The two recipients had an unspecified history of allergic reactions and both were on adrenaline auto-injectors. Both are recovering, authorities said.
But because of the two incidents, “anyone with a history of a significant allergic reaction to a vaccine, drug, or food (such as a prior history of an anaphylactoid reaction or those who have been recommended to carry an adrenaline auto-injector) should not receive the Pfizer BioNTech Vaccine, “the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said on a new council on Wednesday, according to PA Media.
The MHRA said it will issue updated advice once it reviews the two cases. Pfizer issued a statement saying it supported the investigation.
Azar, the US secretary for health and human services, said he wants to make sure the FDA looks at UK allergic reaction data when it discusses the Pfizer vaccine on Thursday.
“The FDA is not going to cut corners,” Azar told CNN on Wednesday.
People with a history of severe reactions to vaccines were not included in its vaccine trial, according to Pfizer data released by the FDA on Tuesday.
Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told CNN that about one in 1.4 million doses of vaccines in the US is complicated by a severe allergic reaction.
In the case of the Pfizer vaccine, he said it will be important for UK officials to find out exactly which component of the vaccine caused the reactions in the two patients, so the country can offer personalized guidance rather than a “blanket recommendation. “.
America needs to unite for the holiday season, experts say
The impacts of the pandemic are spreading across the country, Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services Admiral Brett Giroir told CNN on Tuesday.
Los Angeles County confirmed a total of 8,000 coronavirus deaths and more than 3,000 hospitalizations Tuesday, which the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health called a “tragic milestone” in a press release. And Pennsylvania recorded its highest number of coronavirus hospitalizations on Tuesday.
As more holidays approach, it is increasingly imperative that Americans recognize the realities of the pandemic and come together to mitigate its impacts, experts said.
“The end of the pandemic is in sight. The vaccine will work, it will end the pandemic and it will return us to normality or normality as close as possible, but we have to do our part right now, which are those mitigation techniques,” he said Giroir. said.
The United States already had 40,000 to 70,000 new coronavirus cases a day in September and October, before a strong fall surge struck in November, and the spread of Thanksgiving gatherings will result in “wave upon wave. “said Dr. Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said.
Families and friends gathering for Christmas and Hanukkah could add another spike to the mix, making the pandemic’s impacts even worse in December and January, Fauci said Tuesday in a discussion with the National Urban League.
“We are going to ask people to do something that is difficult and perhaps even painful, particularly at the family level, that is to tell people, unless absolutely necessary, not to travel,” he said. “We said it on Thanksgiving and the same on Christmas.”
This story was first published on CNN.com, “Canada approves the Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as the US prepares for its own decision.”
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