United States Army General Gustave F. Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed (Photo: Yonhap News)
The United States plans to distribute 6.4 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in the first week after it is cleared for emergency use, which is likely next month.
A committee of the Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to meet on December 10 to decide whether to approve the medicine.
General Gustave Perna, chief operations officer for the government's Operation Warp Speed, told reporters in Washington some 40 million doses of vaccine would be available by the end of December.
That figure includes another vaccine developed by Moderna and the National Institutes for Health, which announced some preliminary efficacy results last week and is also close to applying for emergency approval.
The country is facing a surge in new infections and on Tuesday recorded a total of 259,600 coronavirus deaths and 12.5 million cases.
Perna said that 64 jurisdictions across the U.S. were informed last week that the amount of vaccines receive will be proportionate to their population size.
Health secretary Alex Azar said vaccinations will begin in retirement homes within 48 hours of the emergency approval.
Please send comments to tbsefmnews@gmail.com / copyright © tbs. Unauthorized redistribution prohibited.