“We will be shooting in our weapons within 96 hours of the EUA,” General Gustave Perna, chief of operations for Operation Warp Speed, said on Tuesday. – I believe that wholeheartedly.
The wider audience is likely to continue to fight spikes from the holiday season until vaccinations are widely available in 2021. But officials will compete in the coming days to distribute vaccines to key groups – the elderly and health workers.
While this will be a “Herculean task,” Perna said he is confident that by planning the CDC and working with partners, “we will be able to carry out this vaccination very effectively, but more importantly, effectively.”
States are preparing to spread vaccines among “tragic milestones.”
The impact of the pandemic has spread across the country, Admiral Brett Giroir, deputy secretary for health and human services, told CNN on Tuesday.
Los Angeles County confirmed a total of 8,000 coronavirus deaths and more than 3,000 hospitalizations on Tuesday, which the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health called a “tragic milestone” in a press release. And Pennsylvania on Tuesday recorded the highest number of coronavirus hospitalizations.
As local leaders handle the growing number of cases, many are also putting their vaccination plans in order.
In Illinois, although the first delivery is expected next week, it will take months to introduce the vaccine, even for high-profile groups, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Delaware also expects to receive its first shipment next week. Dr. Karyl Rattay of the Delaware Department of Public Health announced Tuesday that the state is expecting nearly 9,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine around December 9, and more than 8,000 at Moderna next week.
As soon as Minnesota receives its first shipment of vaccines expected next week, they will be sent directly to key hospitals or “centers” and then shipped to smaller clinics, Governor Tim Walz said at a news conference.
Minnesota, Illinois, Mississippi and Delaware say health workers and residents in long-term care receive the vaccines first.
“Unused vaccines are useless”
But for vaccinations to be effective, they need to be used by the public – and officials are urging them to take part in the vaccinations.
“Unused vaccines are useless,” Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said Tuesday. – Vaccination is important.
Their development has been rapid, but experts say this does not mean that vaccines are ineffective or unsafe.
Slaoui said the operational and financial risk-taking in developing the vaccine meant speed, not scientific angles.
“The first thing is to draw attention to the fact that speed has nothing to do with compromising security or scientific integrity,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said. “The reason for this is the extraordinary and excellent development of vaccine platform technology, which has allowed us to do things from weeks to months that used to last for years, years.
There are concerns that many Americans will be skeptical about obtaining vaccines, but Fauci acknowledged the “painful difference” in the spread of the virus among African Americans, as well as “reluctance and skepticism about the vaccine.”
“I will tell you that I myself will be perfectly comfortable receiving the vaccine and would recommend it to my family,” he said.
The US needs to put together a holiday season
As more holidays approach, it is becoming increasingly imperative for Americans to acknowledge the reality of the pandemic and work together to mitigate its effects, experts said.
“The end of the pandemic is visible. The vaccine will work, it will end the epidemic and it is as close as possible to normal or normal levels, but we have to do our part now, this is the mitigation technique,” Giroir said.
In the U.S., 40 to 70,000 new cases of coronavirus were registered daily before Thanksgiving, and the increase in festive prevalence has resulted in an increase in surge, Fauci said.
And families and friends gathered at Christmas and Hanukkah could add another thorn to the mix, which will exacerbate the effects of the epidemic in December and January, he said.
“We’re going to ask people to do things that are difficult and maybe painful, especially at the family level, to tell people unless it’s absolutely necessary not to travel.” “We said that at Thanksgiving, and we say the same at Christmas.”
CNN’s Gisela Crespo, Jamiel Lynch, Lauren Mascarenhas, Shelby Lin Erdman, Naomi Thomas and Jason Hanna contributed to this report.
