The first trucks carrying a COVID-19 vaccine for widespread use in the U.S. pulled out of a Michigan manufacturing facility Sunday, with the shots that are critical to stopping the nation’s coronavirus outbreak beginning in earnest a day later.
Shipments of the Pfizer vaccine will set in motion the biggest vaccination effort in American history at a critical juncture of the pandemic that has killed 1.6 million and sickened 71 million worldwide.
Initially, about 3 million doses were expected to be sent out, and the priority is health care workers and nursing home residents as infections, hospitalisations and deaths soar in the U.S. With numbers likely to get worse over the holidays, the vaccine is offering a bright spot in the fight against the pandemic that’s killed nearly 3,00,000 Americans.
Federal officials say the first shipments of Pfizer’s vaccine will be staggered, arriving in 145 distribution centres on Monday, with an additional 425 sites getting shipments on Tuesday, and the remaining 66 on Wednesday.
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