A committee of experts is letting people over 75 and essential workers such as firefighters, teachers and grocery store workers get the next batch of the new coronavirus vaccine. On Sunday, a second vaccine began being distributed to hospitals, a much-needed boost to U.S. efforts to contain the new coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. is working to expand the vaccination program, which began only last week and has now delivered initial vaccinations to about 556,000 Americans.
A second shipment of U.S.-authorized Neovirus vaccine left a distribution center Sunday as the U.S. works to contain the pandemic.
The truck left the plant in Olive Branch, Mississippi, with the vaccine developed jointly by Modena and the National Institutes of health. Much-needed injections are expected to begin Monday, just three days after the Food and Drug Administration approved the emergency rollout.
Dr. Moncef Sloui, the federal government’s chief scientific adviser for vaccine distribution, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that nearly 8 million doses of the vaccine will be distributed Monday, with about 5.9 million doses of the Modena vaccine and 2 million doses from Pfizer. He said the first doses of the Modena vaccine should be administered Monday morning.
Also on Sunday, a committee of experts began considering who should receive the next doses of the Modena vaccine as well as the vaccine developed by Pfizer and German biotech companies. Pfizer’s vaccine was first shipped a week ago and became available the next day, kicking off the largest vaccination campaign in the United States.
Public health experts say vaccination is the only way to stop the virus from spreading wildly. Across the United States, an average of more than 219,000 people test positive for the new coronavirus every day, which has killed more than 316,000 people in the United States and nearly 1.7 million worldwide.
Slaugh also predicted that the U.S. will experience a “continued surge” and that Christmas parties may see more cases of the new coronavirus.
“I think, unfortunately, it’s going to get worse,” he said.
Expert committee members tended to rank “essential workers” as the second group to be vaccinated, because people like bus drivers, grocery store clerks and others are most often infected. But other experts said people 65 and older should be next in line, as well as people with certain diseases, because those are the Americans with the highest mortality rates.
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