Officials expect to see 40 million COVID-19 vaccine doses distributed in December
Officials with Operation Warp Speed said that COVID-19 vaccine distribution will begin 24 hours after the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval.
Operation Warp Speed (OWS) officials announced that about 40 million doses of 2 safe and highly effective vaccines for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) – made by Moderna and Pfizer – could be available for distribution by the end of December, pending FDA approval.1
The distribution is enough to vaccinate about 20 million Americans at high risk for COVID-19, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, MD, said in a news briefing on Wednesday.2
Both Pfizer and Modera have created messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine candidates; Pfizers’ showed a 95% efficacy rate in a recent update, whereas Moderna reported meeting its primary end point of efficacy, with 94.5% .
The CDC has moved to facilitate rapid distribution of vaccine to each state, Gen. Gustave Perna, OWS chief operating officer, said in the briefing.3
The CDC has collaborated with commercial industry to produce, store, distribute, and administer the vaccine. Perna mentioned McKesson, in addition to Pfizer and Moderna, as partners in distributing the vaccine.
Contemporary OB/GYN Senior Editor Angie DeRosa gets insight on the current state of COVID-19 from Christina Han, MD, division director of maternal-fetal medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and member of its COVID-19 task force. Han is an active member of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and discusses the issues on behalf of SMFM.
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