Coronavirus Vaccine May Be Available To Americans By Mid-December

Vaccines for the novel coronavirus may become available to Americans by mid-December after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration grants emergency use approval.

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser for the Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” vaccine program, said the manufacturers could begin rolling out doses of the vaccine within a day of approval. The number of doses would vary depending on the need of each state.

“Within 24 hours from the approval, the vaccine will be moving and located in the areas where each state will have told us where they want the vaccine doses,” Slaoui told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will recommend who receives the vaccine first. Dr. Slaoui said health care workers, first responders, and the elderly are likely to be prioritized.

Moderna is expected to seek emergency use authorization from the FDA by the end of the month. Meanwhile, Pfizer and German collaborator BioNTech had filed for emergency use authorization on Friday.

The FDA will coordinate with the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee to discuss Pfizer’s application for an emergency use authorization. The VRBPAC is scheduled to meet on Dec. 10, Business Insider reported.

The panel’s decision on Dec. 10 would go to the FDA, where the staff would make a final decision. Typically, the agency takes a few days to authorize the vaccine.

Once a vaccine receives emergency use authorization, the Operation Warp Speed program will begin shipping vaccines to distribution centers across the U.S. However, immunization cannot start until the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meet and issue a recommendation on who gets the vaccines first.

Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed General, said they expect to have 40 million doses of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year. Both vaccines require two doses given three to four weeks apart.

Additional doses of the COVID-19 vaccine will be rolled out in 2021 and distributed to people at risk of a severe infection. White House infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said the general population would likely have access to the vaccine in April, USA Today reported.