COVID-19 vaccines are on the way to health care workers and vulnerable patients across the United States—the best holiday gift ever, thanks to biotechnology. Here’s an update on where things stand.
Over the weekend, the FDA authorized Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use—the second to get the authorization following Pfizer-BioNTech the previous week.
Today, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public health officials will get the Moderna vaccine at NIH, reports POLITICO.
Meanwhile, the European Union, Switzerland, and UK authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, too.
Both vaccines are 95% effective—but Moderna offers “particular hope for rural hospitals, which often do not have the ultracold equipment or staffing numbers to handle the Pfizer-BioNTech shipments,” explains The New York Times.
Following health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, the next group to receive the vaccine (phase 1b) in the United States is expected to be adults 75+ and frontline essential workers, including first responders, teachers, day care workers, postal workers, and people who work in food and grocery stores, agriculture, public transit, manufacturing, and correctional facilities.
What they’re saying: “Through the FDA’s open and transparent scientific review process, two COVID-19 vaccines have been authorized in an expedited timeframe while adhering to the rigorous standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality needed to support emergency use authorization that the American people have come to expect from the FDA,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen M. Hahn.
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“‘We are an intellectual magnet for the best of the best from around the world,’ said Dr. Jeremy Levin, CEO of Ovid Therapeutics and chairman of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.”
