CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Americans will soon have access to a second COVID-19 vaccine.
Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, granted emergency authorization Friday to a vaccine made by Moderna, a week after giving similar clearance to one made by Pfizer and its German collaborator, BioNTech.
His is authorizing rather than approving the vaccine, because longer-term research is needed to meet the full standards for approval, which officials don t want to wait for during the public health emergency.
The speedy path to authorization was possible because the agency “cut through regulatory red tape,” Hahn said at a Friday night press conference. We worked quickly based on the urgency of this global pandemic . we have not cut corners.
California led the case surge with 48,221 more infections. Almost 17,000 people are hospitalized in California and health officials are scrambling to find enough beds for patients. Texas, Florida, New York and Tennessee all registered more than 10,400 new cases.
The seven-day rolling average for new cases in the U.S. rose in the past two weeks from 183,787 to 219,324 on Friday, an increase of nearly 20%.
Health officials are concerned about future cases brought on by travel and gatherings during the holidays and New Year’s.
Gen. Gustave Perna, an Army general in charge of COVID-19 vaccines, said Saturday that the government now is on track to get approximately 20 million doses to states by the first week of January, a combination of the newly approved Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
and last updated 2020-12-17 19:07:31-05
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) â Some of the first doses of Pfizer s COVID-19 vaccine were administered Thursday morning to front-line health care workers at hospitals across Tennessee.
Tennessee received its first batch of the Pfizer vaccine earlier this week but didn t start its rollout at hospitals until Thursday. Front-line health care workers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were among those to receive the first doses.
At Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford, Dr. David Sellers, chief of staff for the hospital, was the first person to be vaccinated at that hospital. While Dr. Jeff Mason, an infectious disease specialist, was the first to receive the vaccination at Ascension Saint Thomas West.
Ascension Saint Thomas West administers first vaccine to infectious disease specialist wsmv.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wsmv.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.