#Roommates, as multiple pharmaceutical companies race to get the COVID-19 vaccine to anxious Americans, a recent update reveals that the first round of vaccinations could happen much sooner than you think. The White House vaccine chief recently confirmed that the first Americans to receive the COVID-19 vaccine could happen as early as December 11th.
@CNN reports, Moncef Slaoui, who is the current head of the US government’s effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, stated that if everything goes according to plan, the first set of Americans to receive the vaccine could occur as early as the second week of December.
“Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunization sites within 24 hours from the approval, so I would expect maybe on day two after approval, on the 11th or on the 12th of December, hopefully, the first people will be immunized across the United States, across all states, in all the areas where the State Departments of Health will have told us where to deliver the vaccine,” Slaoui told CNN’s Jake Tapper during a recent episode of “State of the Union.”
Slaoui also gave insight on when he expects life to go back to normal after the vaccine has been widely administered, estimating that it would likely happen in May 2021. He elaborated, telling Tapper that with the level of efficacy that has been shown in both Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines, “70% or so of the population being immunized would allow for true herd immunity to take place, that is likely to happen somewhere in the month of May, or something like that based on our plans.”
On November 20th, Pfizer officially submitted an application to the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use of authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate—and the FDA vaccine advisory committee is slated to meet December 10th with a follow-up decision. Based on Slaoui’s estimates, if the vaccine is then authorized, it could be administered to Americans the very next day.
Following Slaoui’s comments, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said that while he “totally agree[s]” with Slaoui that there could be herd immunity by May, it would require that a majority of the country be vaccinated.
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