First Americans ‘could get vaccine on December 11th or 12th’: White House vaccine czar

WASHINGTON:

The first Americans to receive a COVID-19 vaccine could get it as soon as December 11 or 12, the White House vaccine czar said on Sunday.

On Friday, American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech submitted an application to the United States (US) Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorisation for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, and an FDA vaccine advisory committee is slated to meet December on 10.

“Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunisation sites within 24 hours from the approval, so I would expect maybe on day two after approval, on the 11th or on the 12th of December,” Dr Moncef Slaoui, the head of the US coronavirus vaccine programme told CNN.

The US has recorded over 12 million cases and 255,000 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the highest toll registered anywhere in the world. (PTI)