Pfizer Covid vaccine will reach US hospitals on Monday
Published: 01:12 PM,Dec 13,2020 | EDITED : 08:05 AM,May 04,2024
The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine will reach hospitals and other sites across the United States by Monday morning, a top official said Saturday, ready to be injected into the arms of millions of the most vulnerable Americans.
The shots will begin leaving the Pfizer factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan on Sunday, stored in boxes containing dry ice that are capable of staying at -70 degrees Celsius (-94 degrees Fahrenheit), the frigid temperature needed to preserve the drug.
General Gus Perna, who is overseeing the massive logistical operation as part of the government's Operation Warp Speed, likened the moment to D-Day, the turning point of World War II.
'I am absolutely 100 percent confident that we are going to distribute safely, this precious commodity, this vaccine, needed to defeat the enemy Covid,' he told reporters.
It comes as the coronavirus is soaring across the country as never before, with fatalities now approaching 300,000 and nearly 16 million cases of infection.
Over the past two weeks the US has exceeded 2,000 Covid-related deaths per day several times, rivalling tolls it saw in the early days of the pandemic.
Perna said hundreds of sites, including hospitals and other distribution centers, would receive the vaccines from Monday to Wednesday, which would cover the first wave of about three million people to be vaccinated.
Federal health authorities have recommended that health care workers and nursing home residents be at the front of the line, but the final decisions have been left to states.
- Regulatory approval -