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(CNN) – COVID-19 continues to devastate the United States, even as a second coronavirus vaccine received a recommendation vote from a committee of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization and Practices (ACIP) voted Saturday to recommend Moderna’s candidate vaccine for people 18 years and older, following the decision of the US Food and Drug Administration one day before authorizing. the vaccine for emergency use.
CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield must accept the group’s recommendation, which would clear the way for vaccine administration and add a second vaccine to the country’s arsenal at a crucial time in the pandemic.
Over the past week, the US averaged more than 219,000 new COVID-19 infections a day, according to a CNN analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. More than 249,000 infections were reported on Friday alone, another record.
More than 18,000 Americans died of COVID-19 last week, and the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that another 237,000 more Americans will die of COVID-19 in the next three months.
“We have this great news with vaccines, but we also have to see where we are, which is that our hospitalizations are almost double what they were a month ago,” said emergency medicine doctor Dr. Leana Wen. “We have a person who dies from coronavirus basically every 30 seconds here in the United States.”
“Know that there are a lot of viruses across the country,” he added, urging Americans to consider not traveling on vacation. “The entire United States is a hot spot for the coronavirus.”
Officials and experts try to combat doubts about vaccines
The ACIP recommendation of the Moderna vaccine comes as hundreds of Americans across the country have already received their first dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, which was cleared for emergency use by the FDA last week.
Top officials, including Vice President Mike Pence and US Surgeon General Jerome Adams, received the Pfizer vaccine publicly on Friday in an effort to build public confidence.
“This is the beginning of the end,” Adams told CNN on Friday night. “Make no mistake about it, it will be a tough couple of weeks. We still have work to do to overcome this increase, but I want people to cheer up.”
He chose to receive the vaccine on television because he wanted the American public “to understand that I have looked at the data, I have worked with companies and I felt safe receiving the vaccine,” he said.
The dean of Morehouse School of Medicine received the vaccine live on CNN Friday morning and said that while she understands that some black Americans are concerned about the nation’s history of racism in medical research, she would not recommend one. vaccine you don’t trust. .
“Really, this is a message of life and death for black people about the coronavirus,” said Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice.
At a news conference Saturday, Adams said he was more concerned about vaccine confidence than supply, encouraging hesitant people to seek information about vaccines.
“It’s okay to ask questions,” he said. “What’s wrong is allowing misinformation or mistrust to lead you to make a decision that will be detrimental to your health, or to the health of your family or the health of your community.”
“This vaccine is almost 100% safe to prevent you or your loved one from getting a serious illness,” he said. “It’s the way we ended this pandemic.”
Dr. José Romero, president of the ACIP and secretary of the Arkansas Department of Health, said Saturday that safety has been and will continue to be a focus when considering vaccines.
Following the group’s vote to recommend the Moderna vaccine, Romero emphasized that minority groups were included in the process.
“As a person of color, I feel this has been adequately addressed and will continue to be adequately addressed as we move forward,” Romero said.
Additionally, Moderna has an ongoing study of its COVID-19 vaccine in adolescents between the ages of 12 to 18. At Saturday’s ACIP meeting, the company said it expected results from those trials sometime in 2021.
Moderna said it is also discussing with the National Institutes of Health the design of an additional pediatric clinical trial for children between the ages of 6 months and 12 years.
Modern vaccine distribution has already begun
Distribution of the Moderna vaccine “has already begun,” said Army Gen. Gustave Perna, director of operations for Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s vaccine initiative.
“The boxes are being packed and loaded today,” he told a news conference Saturday. “Trucks will begin shipping tomorrow, from FedEx and UPS, to deliver vaccines and kits to Americans across the United States.”
This week 7.9 million doses of vaccines were assigned, Perna said, and the United States is “on track” to assign 20 million doses by the end of the year.
More than 6 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine will be shipped to more than 3,200 sites where they will be administered, far more than the 636 sites to which Pfizer’s vaccines were shipped.
Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, said the Moderna vaccine will help extend the reach of COVID-19 vaccines, allowing them to be distributed even more widely. While both vaccines must be kept cold, Pfizer requires ultra-cold storage that is generally easier for larger medical centers with more resources.
But Moderna’s vaccine “can reach a lot more rural areas, smaller hospitals, local county health departments that can start distributing the vaccine,” Schaffner said, “while the people who deal with the Pfizer vaccine are vaccine in large medical centers. “
As of Saturday, more than 272,000 doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine have been administered, according to the CDC.
Meanwhile, some states say they have been informed that they will receive fewer doses of the Pfizer vaccine next week than initially promised.
Massachusetts health officials said it was unclear why the dose numbers have changed.
“The Department of Public Health now expects to receive … a little over 145,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine by the end of December, a number that has been reduced from 180,000. That is about a 20% decrease,” said the secretary of Health and human services, Marylou Sudders said at a news conference.
“At this time, we are not clear why the shipment amounts have been adjusted,” he said.
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said officials were “certainly frustrated that we did not receive the amount we expected in the first wave and we are working to clarify what this means.”
At Saturday’s press conference, Perna attributed the lower allocations to a “planning error” and said he took “personal responsibility for the lack of communication.”
“To the governors, to the staff of the governors, please accept my personal apology if this interrupted your decision making and your conversations with the people of your great state,” Perna said. “I will work hard to correct it.”
Different states, different measurements
As state and federal officials prepare for more vaccine shipments, different parts of the country are reporting different COVID-19 trends.
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said hospitals are in “crisis management” mode and capacity has been added at facilities across the state.
“I think hospitals are going to be able to handle this,” he said. “We learned a lot in the spring.”
In Los Angeles County, hospitals are running out of beds in intensive care units as the region continues to experience an overwhelming increase in COVID-19 infections. The county is poised to become the epicenter of the pandemic, Dr. Brad Spellberg, medical director of the LAC + USC Medical Center, said Friday.
“I’m not sugarcoating this. We are getting squashed,” Spellberg said.
Dr. Thomas Yadegar, ICU director at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center, told CNN on Saturday that the situation is “by far the worst it has been in the last nine months.” He urged the public to follow the recommendations of public health officials.
“Right now, we need Los Angeles to become a ghost town again,” Yadegar said. “That is what we need, in order to try to save as many people and heal as many souls.”
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo announced that the state will end a “hiatus” on Sunday that was put in place to slow the spread of the virus, following a drop in Covid-19 metrics, including the positivity rate. Still, residents are encouraged to wear a mask and social distancing, authorities said.
The Michigan governor also announced the lifting of some restrictions on Friday, which comes after a decline in COVID-19 markers in the past month, according to health officials.
In-person classes can resume at high schools and closed venues, such as movie theaters, can reopen with capacity limits and other safety precautions, the governor said. Group outdoor fitness activities and outdoor non-contact sports can also be resumed.
This story was first published on CNN.com, “US Sees Record COVID-19 Cases As CDC Advisory Group Votes To Recommend Modern Vaccine.”
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