AMERICANS could start getting Pfizer’s Covid vaccine tomorrow – along with President Donald Trump and top officials who are among first to be offered jab.
The news comes as the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has signed off on Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine to be used starting on Monday.
President Trump wrote to Twitter on Sunday evening: “Vaccines are shipped and on their way, FIVE YEARS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE.
“Get well USA. Get well WORLD. We love you all!”
CDC Director Robert Redfield announced the news in a statement on Sunday.
“Last night, I was proud to sign the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendation to use Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine on people 16 and older,” Redfield stated.
“This official CDC recommendation follows Friday’s FDA decision to authorize the emergency use of Pfizer’s vaccine.”
According to Bloomberg News, the president and Vice-President Mike Pence will be presented with the covid vaccine on Monday.
Other US officials will also be first in line to be offered the approved vaccine, sources told the news outlet.
Essential White House staffers and some officials across three branches of government will get vaccinated over the course of 10 days starting tomorrow.
The vaccine will be given to staffers at various times to make sure potential side effects do not show up to all recipients at once.
As of this weekend, the United States has experienced nearly 300,000 coronavirus deaths and cases have surpassed 16million.
Redfield said the CDC’s recommendation “comes at a critical time.”
“Initial COVID-19 vaccination is set to start as early as Monday, and this is the next step in our efforts to protect Americans, reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and help restore some normalcy to our lives and our country,” Redfield concluded.
Redfield’s statement came on the same day that the first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, co-produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, began shipping out from a manufacturing plant in Michigan.
Earlier on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn said he wanted the vaccines to be given out “very expeditiously, hopefully tomorrow.”
“We’ve seen the vaccines go out, we’ve seen the press reports of hospitals waiting to vaccinate healthcare workers and those most vulnerable,” Hahn said.
“It would be my greatest hope and desire that it occur tomorrow.”
In a Fox News interview on Sunday, President Donald Trump claimed credit for the vaccine being in the distribution stage.
“If I wasn’t president? According to almost everybody, even the enemy, if I wasn’t president, you wouldn’t have a vaccine for five years,” Trump told Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade.
“OK, I push the FDA and companies and everybody else involved like nobody’s ever been pushed before.”
As of Sunday, the US has 16,068,348 reported Covid-19 cases and about 298,000 Americans have died, according to John Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering Covid-19 dashboard.
Worldwide, about 1.6million people have died and the number of cases has exceeded 71million.
