New York / Indianapolis (Reuters) – U.S. Health officials, shipping services and hospitals are set to launch an unprecedented mass inoculation campaign on Friday, as federal regulators gave emergency approval to the first COVID-19 vaccine in the United States.
Preparations for the vaccine rollout were made at the last minute, as the death toll from the coronavirus epidemic in the U.S. reached close to 300,000.
Another 2,902 U.S. deaths were reported on Thursday, 3,253 a day after the record, with the distribution of available vaccine supplies expected to continue in the next two to three months.
President Donald Trump said the first shot could be administered as early as 24 hours, leading to significant efforts to see the epidemic as a catastrophe that disrupted daily life in the United States and destroyed its economy.
Moving forward with unprecedented momentum, U.S. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday approved emergency use of a coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. with its German partner Bioentech.
Britain, Bahrain, Canada and Mexico have already approved the Pfizer vaccine, and the U.S. The advisory panel will review another vaccine from Moderna Inc. next week.
Other vaccine candidates are working as the United States prepares for a campaign to eliminate polio inoculation for children in the 1950s and 1960s.
Delivery companies United Parcel Service and FedEx Corp are ready to send millions of doses across the country under an agreement with the federal government, giving first priority to vaccines on their aircraft and trucks.
Plans U.S. Marshalls is urged to provide vaccine shipment protection from production facilities at delivery locations, including operations as escorts for delivery trucks.
New York City officials announced plans to open a vaccination command center across the street from City Hall on Monday to coordinate distribution in the country’s largest city. Mayor Bill de Blasio said special attention would be given to the 27 hard-affected neighbors, mostly populated by ethnic minorities.
“This is unprecedented because it’s not just about logistics, it’s about making sure we win the trust of the public, it’s about ensuring equity,” De Blasio told a news briefing.
New York State expects to receive 346,000 doses of the moderne vaccine in the week of December 21, on top of the 170,000 Pfizer doses coming this week, Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference.
Vaccine dry-run
Healthcare workers and the elderly in long-term care facilities are expected to be the first recipients for shots, meaning early limits on supply mean, in general, that most people will have to wait months for the vaccine to become widely available.
Indiana University Health Center, one of the first hospitals designated to administer the vaccine, was reconsidering its vaccination process on Friday, with pharmacists, nurses and doctors participating in an exercise to collect, transport and give real shots to patients. [nL1N2IR1JI]
“We want to make sure we are fully prepared and open with a bang,” Kristen Kelly, IU Health’s director of infection prevention, told Reuters.
Elsewhere, many healthcare workers were struggling to cope with a surprising case when they faced a shortage of staff and personal protective equipment (PPE), including surgical gloves, gowns and quick diagnostic test kits.
“We don’t have enough. They are not readily available, they take a very long time, and the supply chain is not always operational, ”said Connie Martin, chief executive officer of San Louis Valley Health, which operates a regional medical center in Alamosa, Conrado.
Alamosa Hospital serves six large rural counties in southern Colorado with a population of about 500,000.
U.S. Rollout Within 100 days of its inauguration on January 20 – U.S. One-third of the population – 100 million people – faces significant logistical challenges to meet President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of inoculation.
But any American who wants a vaccine should get one by May or June, Assistant U.S. Secretary of Health Brett Giroire told Fox News on Friday.
However, Americans have reason to be skeptical about the vaccine, with only 1% saying they are open to inoculation, according to a Reuters / Ipsos poll.
In the meantime, the horrendous statistics are consistently staggering as 200,000 U.S. More than 220,815 cases were reported on Thursday, with another 220,815 reported on Thursday, according to official Reuters figures.
About 15.6 million known infections have been reported in the United States as of Thursday.
State and local leaders have implemented barriers in social and economic life in recent weeks to slow the spread of the infection, with many Americans ignoring the urge to limit travel, avoid unnecessary gatherings, and wear masks in public.
Cuomo announced that the indoor restaurant in New York City, which reopened just two months ago, will open Monday.
Adherence to such COVID-related shutdowns has proven to be far from uniform.
California’s youth basketball program, whose leaders ignored sports practices and sports restrictions, was found to be the source of the Covid-19 outbreak, public health officials in Santa Clara County, near San Francisco, said. Friday.
According to Dell, an influential model at the University of Health Matrix and Evaluation in Washington, D.C. Deaths related to Covid will exceed 500,000 by April 1.
Reported by Maria Caspani, Brendan O’Brien, Susan Heavy, Peter Szkili, Sharon Bernstein, Ankur Banerjee and Anurag Mann; Written by Daniel Trota and Steve Gorman; Edited by Nick Ziminski, Jonathan Otis, Tom Brown and Raju Gopalakrishnan
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