USA approves use of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for pilots, controllers
- by Joy Garcia
- in Medicine
- — Dec 16, 2020
"Today really we turn a corner", said Dr. Kevin Smith, president and chief executive of the University Health Network's Michener Institute, where the shot was administered. This digital embed shows the overall effectiveness of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine and its protection by age group.
For now, only Pfizer's vaccine, which the Food and Drug Administration greenlit Friday, is being shipped. The other is Saint-Antoine in Quebec City, where public health officials said resident Gisele Levesque would be the first to be vaccinated.
The most commonly reported side effects of the vaccine - which typically lasted several days - were injection site pain, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, and fever.
The FAA also urged airports coordinate with local air traffic control facilities before and during vaccine transport flight's movement on the airfield.
They will deliver to 145 distribution centers around the country by Monday, said Army Gen. Gustave Perna of Operation Warp Speed, the government effort to develop and distribute COVID-19 vaccines.
The 40-hospital Oschner Health System in Louisiana and MS expects to receive more than 9,000 doses in the coming days, said Dr Sandra Kemmerly, medical director of hospital quality. Healthcare workers and elderly residents of long-term care homes are first in line to receive the inoculations.
Some 150 residents were set to receive shots at Maimonides on Monday, and 50,000 people will be vaccinated in Quebec by January 4, Quebec's Health Minister Christian Dube said.
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The stricter restrictions include a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people and spectators at sports events. Saturday's figure takes the total number of domestic recorded cases in the country to more than 36,800.
Though doses shall be restricted within the vaccine's first wave, and exclusively obtainable to a choose few, the vaccine itself is proving to be a light-weight on the finish of the tunnel. Pfizer has been producing the COVID vaccine at one of its European plants as well.
Cases are surging in the United States, with thousands of deaths per day, while hospital intensive care units across the country are nearing capacity.
"I would say there's enthusiasm", Dr Kemmerly said on Saturday.
The territories, however, have no distribution sites, because health officials say the Pfizer shot's -70 C storage temperature makes it hard to stock there.
Once the ultra-cold boxes of vaccines arrive, they can remain in the thermal shippers for as long as 30 days, as long as the dry ice is replaced every five days, the company says.
Another vaccine by Moderna will be reviewed by an expert panel next week and soon afterwards could be allowed for public use.
Portage is the home of Pfizer's largest manufacturing site and is the epicenter of vaccine distribution. All told, they plan to produce about 50 million doses by the end of this year and then ramp up to well over 1 billion doses for global administration through the end of next year.
