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WASHINGTON: The country’s first COVID-19 vaccine will begin arriving in states on Monday (Dec. 14) morning, US officials said Saturday, after the government gave the final go-ahead to the vaccines needed to end to an outbreak that has killed nearly 300,000 Americans.
The trucks will launch Sunday morning when shipping companies UPS and FedEx begin delivering Pfizer’s vaccine to nearly 150 distribution centers across the states, said Army Gen. Gustave Perna of Operation Warp Speed, the development program. of the Trump administration. An additional 425 sites will receive submissions on Tuesday and the remaining 66 on Wednesday.
Initially, it was expected that around 3 million doses would be shipped across the country. It was not clear exactly who would receive the first injections, although healthcare workers and nursing home residents were the priority. Perna said the health authorities would decide.
A similar number of injections will be withheld for the second dose of those receptors, which is necessary for full protection against COVID-19.
Saturday’s announcement kicks off a massive logistics operation involving federal and state governments, private companies and healthcare workers to quickly distribute limited supplies of vaccines across the United States. It offers hope in a country battling rising COVID-19 infections and deaths, which overwhelm hospitals and raise fears that things will get worse as people gather for the holidays.
READ: With COVID-19 Vaccine Ready to Ship, US Assures Americans It’s Safe
Perna compared the vaccine distribution effort to D-Day, the US-led military offensive that turned the tide of World War II.
“D-Day was the beginning of the end and that’s where we are today,” Perna said at a news conference. But he added that it would take months of work and “diligence, courage and strength to finally achieve victory.”
MaineHealth, a Portland-based network of 12 hospitals, plans to provide an expected first delivery of nearly 2,000 vaccines to doctors, nurses and others who face risks while treating COVID-19 patients, said Dr. Dora Mills, director of improved health.
“It’s almost difficult for me to talk about it without crying,” Mills said Saturday. “This shot gives us a ray of light at the end of the tunnel.”
The first shipments will leave Pfizer’s Kalamazoo, Michigan manufacturing facility by truck and then fly to regional hubs across the country. McKesson medical distributor and pharmacy chains, including CVS and Rite-Aid, are also involved in initial deployment and vaccines in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
In a key distribution challenge, the vaccine, developed in conjunction with BioNTech, must be stored and shipped at ultra-low temperatures, approximately 94 degrees (70 degrees Celsius) below zero. Pfizer has developed shipping containers that use dry ice, and GPS sensors will allow the company to track each shipment and ensure it stays cool.
The distribution sites are primarily large hospitals and other facilities capable of meeting ultra-cold storage requirements. Within three weeks, vaccines must be delivered to all state-identified vaccination sites, such as local pharmacies, Perna said.
The vaccine was scheduled to arrive Monday so healthcare workers could receive the injections and begin giving them, Perna said.
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Workers at the Mount Sinai Hospital System in New York did a rehearsal this week to prepare for their shipment. In a clean room, pharmacists practiced preparing separate doses of a training vaccine and ensured that the freezer was kept at colder temperatures than in Antarctica.
“Not many people have been vaccinated against a big pandemic like this,” said Susan Mashni, vice president of pharmacy at Mount Sinai. “So we want to make sure we get it right. There are many different moving parts and pieces. “
At a meeting where an expert panel advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines unanimously endorsed the Pfizer injection, some said local health officials were struggling to ensure the vaccine was distributed. fairly and among those most in need and to ease people’s concerns about vaccination. the shot.
But “the funds needed for state and local health departments to run this program have been frozen,” said Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, a Seattle physician who represents the National Association of City and County Health Officials. .
The Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of the vaccine on Friday night. It closed an unprecedented global race to accelerate vaccines through testing and review, cutting years off the normal development process.
The FDA found the vaccine to be highly protective without major safety concerns. US regulators worked for months to emphasize the rigor and independence of their review, but the administration of President Donald Trump lobbied the agency until the final announcement. A senior White House official even threatened to remove FDA chief Stephen Hahn if a ruling was not issued by Saturday.
Concerns that an injection will be rushed could undermine vaccination efforts in a country with deep-seated skepticism about vaccines.
“Science and data guided the FDA’s decision,” Hahn said Saturday. “We are working fast because of the urgency of this pandemic, not because of any other external pressure.”
READ: WHO to make decisions on Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines in weeks
While the vaccine was determined to be safe, UK regulators are investigating several serious allergic reactions. FDA instructions tell suppliers not to provide it to people with a known history of serious allergic reactions to any of its ingredients.
The FDA’s director of vaccines, Dr. Peter Marks, said the agency will carefully track any reports of allergic reactions in the US.
Next week, the FDA will review a vaccine from Moderna and the National Institutes of Health that appears as protective as Pfizer’s. On Friday, the Trump administration said it had bought 100 million more doses of that vaccine in addition to the 100 million it previously ordered.
The announcement came after revelations that the White House chose not to block an additional 100 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine for delivery in the second quarter of 2021. The Trump administration maintains that current orders plus those in paperwork will be sufficient to accommodate any American. who wants to get vaccinated at the end of the second quarter of 2021.
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