After almost a year of unparalleled uncertainty and crisis and a pandemic-related death toll of nearly 300,000 Americans there’s finally a beam of light at the end of the long, COVID-19 tunnel. On Friday, December 11, the U.S. and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency use authorization to the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine for the prevention of the coronavirus disease in people ages 16 and older.
The FDA confirmed the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine reported to be safe and 95 percent effective in preventing disease in a massive clinical trial, and already approved in several countries, including Canada and Britain has met the required criteria for emergency use authorization issuance. No time was wasted getting the very first shipment of doses out to hospitals and medical centers nationwide over the weekend through Pfizer’s distribution network. Pfizer has said it hopes to deliver up to 100 million doses this year and another 1.3 billion doses next year.