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OLIVE BRANCH, Mississippi- Employees began packing on Sunday for shipment to the second U.S.-authorized COVID-19 vaccine, a much-needed boost to attempts to control the coronavirus pandemic.
Employees of a factory in the Memphis area packed the vaccine developed by Moderna Inc. and the National Institutes of Health. It is anticipated that much-needed vaccines will begin to be applied on Monday, just three days after the Food and Drug Administration authorized its distribution for emergency use.
On Sunday afternoon, a committee of experts will discuss who will be the next to receive the first doses of the Modern vaccine and a similar one developed by Pfizer Inc and the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech. Pfizer vaccines were shipped a week ago and began to be applied the next day, kicking off the country’s largest vaccination campaign.
Public health experts say vaccines, and others in development, are the only way to contain the virus that has spread uncontrollably. Nationally, more than 219,000 people a day on average test positive for the virus, which has killed more than 314,000 people in the United States and nearly 1.7 million worldwide.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines sent so far and those that will be sent in the coming weeks will be almost entirely by health workers and nursing home residents, based on the advice of the Vaccination Practice Advisory Committee.
The panel meets on Sunday to discuss who will receive the available doses after applying the first ones.
There will not be enough vaccines for the general population until spring, so doses will be rationed at least over the next few months.
Panel members lean toward “essential workers” to be the next to be vaccinated because people like bus drivers, supermarket clerks, and others are the ones who get infected most often. However, other experts believe that people 65 and older should be the next, along with people with certain suffering, as they are the Americans who die the most.