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President-elect Joe Biden should get vaccinated against the coronavirus as soon as possible for “safety reasons,” US leading public health expert Anthony Fauci said Tuesday, as a second candidate vaccine, made by Moderna, received one. encouraging assessment before probable approval. by the Food and Drug Administration.
A Covid-19 vaccine made by Pfizer is beginning to be delivered to high-priority populations in the US, as the virus continues to rise across the country.
Monday saw 193,454 new cases and 1,311 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The seven-day moving average for daily new cases stood at more than 209,000, or more than one per minute.
The death toll in the United States has surpassed 300,000 and the number of Americans hospitalized continues to rise, reaching a record 110,549, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
On Monday night, Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, told MSNBC: “We are still in the middle of what will be a very, very, very dark winter. Probably tens of thousands of deaths remain before the end of the year and more deaths after that. ”
But the start of the mass vaccination campaign has provided a ray of hope. The first doses of Pfizer and BioNTech were administered to high-priority populations on Monday.
At a press conference, Health Secretary Alex Azar said 636 vaccination sites would receive doses on Wednesday, and another 581 would follow by the end of the week. The first launch of the Pfizer vaccine will see a total of 2.9 million vaccines, Azar said.
The first to receive vaccinations were mostly high-priority healthcare workers. Sandra Lindsay, a nurse at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, was publicly given the first opportunity.
“I hope this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in our history,” Lindsay told reporters.
On Tuesday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said the first vaccines in his state had been “administered to our heroic front-line healthcare workers.”
“This is a day we’ve been waiting for almost a year,” Murphy said. “It was exciting to witness these first vaccines.”
The FDA will likely approve the Moderna vaccine by the end of the week. The company released data on Tuesday and will meet with the FDA on Thursday, where a committee of medical and scientific advisers will decide final approval for emergency use. Azar said 6 million doses would be shipped with approval.
On Tuesday, the FDA said the Moderna vaccine was effective without any specific safety concerns in adults 18 and older. The company’s previous evaluation said its vaccine had a 94.1% efficacy rate in a trial of 30,000 people. The side effects, which can include fever, headache and fatigue, were unpleasant but not dangerous, the agency found. The Moderna vaccine is easier to handle than the Pfizer vaccine, which requires extremely cold storage.
The federal government expects to see 20 million people immunized with a first dose (both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two) by the end of December and an additional 30 million by the end of January. Azar said the general population could expect to have a vaccine available by the end of June, although that schedule is based on the approval of two more vaccines, one developed by Johnson & Johnson and one by AstraZeneca, which are still in the late clinical stage . essays.
Polls show that more Americans are willing to receive the vaccine, although skepticism persists. A survey by ABC News and Ipsos found that more than 80% said they would receive the vaccine, while a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 71% said they would “definitely or probably” have an injection.
Politicians and public health leaders have said they will be vaccinated in public to increase confidence in the vaccine, including Biden.
“We want him to be fully protected when he enters the presidency in January,” Fauci saying ABC on Tuesday. He also said Vice President Mike Pence should get vaccinated, adding that Donald Trump should be protected by the remaining antibodies from his fight with the virus in October.
As most Americans must wait at least a few more months to receive a vaccine, public officials and health experts have pleaded with the public to continue wearing masks and social distancing, especially around the holiday season.
The Trump administration continues to receive criticism for its decision to hold a series of large-scale Christmas parties in which such precautions are not fully observed. Tuesday morning, the president’s daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka Trump, publicly disputed public confinement orders.
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