Hello everyone, hope your finals are going well! As I’m sure you are all aware of, the FDA has just authorized the first COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in the United States. The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine has been proven to be 95% effective and are soon to be shipped around the country. Since this is an emergency use authorization, it is not fully licensed by the FDA since that would take a far longer time; nevertheless, the authorization in of itself is a huge milestone in combatting the pandemic that has cost the lives of millions.
Within the next few weeks, over 20 million people have the chance to be vaccinated, but wearing a mask and staying a distance apart are still crucial mitigation efforts. The vaccine comes in two shots: the first, to prime the body, and the second, to boost the response. For the trial that over 43,000 participated in, around half were randomly given the vaccine and the other half were given a placebo. Of those who were given the vaccine, there were only 8 Coronavirus cases, which is far less than the 162 cases from those who were given the placebo.
The CDC recommends that health care facility workers who could get exposed to COVID-19 on the job, which include doctors, nurses, nursing home aides, cafeteria workers and janitorial staff will be prioritized. Other groups that the CDC wants to prioritize include other non-medical essential workers, people 65 years old and above and those who have underlying medical conditions that have a higher risk of getting dangerously ill from COVID.
Since the first shipments of the vaccine are limited, states will certainly have to prioritise who should receive the vaccine first. It will likely be months before the vaccine will be widely available to non-prioritized groups. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, believes that April will be the time of “open season” or when non-high priority groups could be vaccinated.
The vaccine is likely to be shipped from a Pfizer facility in Michigan and UPS and FedEx have both claimed they are standing by to help with distribution. They will be having them flown and transporting them using vehicles on the ground, where they will eventually reach hospitals and long-term care facilities. To complicate things, the vaccine needs to be stored at an incredibly cold temperature, so special containers filled with dry ice will be used.
Right now, there are no serious side effects, the most common ones are fatigue, headache, muscle pain, chills and fever. I hope everyone remembers to stay safe, social distance and keep wearing a mask!
