Redfield predicts COVID-19 vaccine will be rolled out by ‘end of second week of December’

A vaccine for the coronavirus will begin to be available in the United States “likely by the end of the second week of December,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Robert Redfield told Fox News on Tuesday. .

Redfield told the “Daily Briefing” that a vaccine would initially be made available “in a hierarchical fashion”, with priority going to “residents of nursing homes and then to a combination of health care providers and individuals to high risk of poor results ”.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has scheduled a December 10 meeting of its Vaccines and Related Biologics Advisory Committee to discuss Pfizer’s Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) application for its vaccine candidate. .

Last week, Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech announced that their vaccine candidate was 95% effective against COVID-19 in a large, ongoing study. The FDA may grant an EUA before final testing is fully completed.

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“I think we’ll have about 40 million doses of vaccine by the end of … the year,” Redfield told host Dana Perino. “It’s enough to vaccinate 20 million people. But then it will continue until January and February and hopefully by March we will start to see the vaccine available to the general public.”

Besides the Pfizer / BioNTech candidate, potential vaccines from Massachusetts-based Moderna and Anglo-Swedish giant AstraZeneca have also shown promise. Last week, Moderna announced that its vaccine was 94.5% effective and that it intended to submit an EUA application to the FDA “in the coming weeks.”

On Monday, AstraZeneca announced that its vaccine was 90% effective against the virus.

Redfield warned Perino that while it is “exceptional that we have these vaccines and very exciting,” Americans should still apply the precautions recommended by health officials.

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“I want people to be vigilant because we are turning the corner now,” he said. “You don’t want to be the last group to end up receiving COVID.”

Redfield added that the surge in cases and hospitalizations across the United States is driven by what he called “the silent epidemic, asymptomatic infections primarily among people aged 12 to 35.”