It is expected that Pfizer will only be able to deliver 2.9 million doses in the first few days and only up to 6.4 million doses by 19 December, according to Operation Warp Speed, the government’s vaccine effort.
“As part of the discussion on who should qualify for phase 1b access to the vaccine, ACIP has so far discussed individuals with high-risk medical conditions such as cancer, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), immunocompromised organ transplant status, obesity, severe heart disease, sickle cell disease, and type 2 diabetes,” said the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
For example, last month, the head of the Hawaii Healthcare Association told CNN that not a single hospital in Hawaii had a freezer that could remain cold enough to store Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine and that the state may not have enough access to dry ice to make proper use of the company’s distribution boxes.
They resolve quickly, but CDC and other officials are worried that they might scare some people away from getting a second dose of vaccine and are preparing educational materials to let people know the symptoms are a sign that the vaccine is working to reactivate the body’s immune response and is harmless.
Vaccine counselors have already broken down priority groups into subgroups, and only the first people to receive vaccines have been identified.
Operation Warp Speed Chief Counselor Moncef Slaoui has projected that Pfizer and Moderna can make and deliver between 60 million and 70 million vaccines in January and hopes that two other vaccine makers, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson, will join the vaccine mix in the coming months.
Moderna and Pfizer each claim that they can take up to a billion doses by the end of 2021, but Moderna say that it could be half that—a product that has never been sold before—and Pfizer has already severely adjusted its timeline for delivery of vaccines after unspecified manufacturing problems.
Slaoui said that up to 15% of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine participants had quite noticeable side effects,” including nausea, body aches, headaches, and chills.
Pfizer’s vaccine had its first scare in the US with a health worker in Juneau, Alaska, suffering from an allergic reaction.
“Around one in every million people who get a vaccine can have a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine,” Dr.
And what about the essential workers? ACIP’s expert bodies, including Johns Hopkins University and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, suggest it will be prudent to vaccinate those who work in food processing, emergency responders, and service workers before the general public.
The US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine on Friday, and it is widely expected that EUA will give a similar vaccine to Moderna next week.
Reference
Trump says he is ‘not scheduled’ to take Covid-19 vaccine …. https://www.rt.com/usa/509567-trump-white-house-vaccine-later/