Coronavirus: US set to start vaccinations in days after FDA advisory board recommendation

Older Americans and health workers are first in line, after it was decided the benefits of the Pfizer vaccine “outweighed its risks”.

Americans could be given Covid vaccinations within days. Picture: AFP

Americans will almost certainly begin receiving coronavirus vaccinations within days after the US Food and Drug Administration advisory board recommended that Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine be cleared for use.

The board’s advice is likely to be accepted by the FDA which would mean shots for older Americans and health workers could begin by early next week.

The 23-member FDA advisory board voted that “on the totality of scientific evidence available” the benefits of the Pfizer vaccine “outweighed its risks for use in individuals 16 years of age and older”.

Pfizer’s Covid vaccine has been cleared for use in the US. Picture: AFP

The momentous development is a bittersweet moment for the US. While it marks the beginning of the end of the pandemic, it will come too late for more than 100,000 Americans who are expected to become infected and die in the months ahead before the vaccine reaches them.

The news comes as the country is living through an ever-escalating health nightmare which is toppling grim new milestones each day.

Within days the death toll will top 300,000, dwarfing that of any other country in the world. This week saw a new daily record with 3,253 deaths on Thursday (AEDT) and a new record number of 106,219 people in hospital with Covid. The total number of coronavirus infections also passed 15 million this week with daily new infections running at a record average of more than 210,000 a day, four times the level in mid-October.

Experts have described the rapid spread of the virus as a ‘surge upon a surge’ as a deadly combination of Thanksgiving holiday travel, colder weather and virus fatigue fuels an unprecedented spread.

This latest giant surge is taking place across the whole country unlike the earlier and smaller virus surges in April and then in July which were localised in the northeast and then in the sunbelt respectively.

The outbreak is now seeing hospitals in many states, including New Mexico, North Dakota and parts of Georgia, run out of ICU beds.

In New Mexico, the situation is so dire that the Governor Michelle Grisham is expected to announce that doctors can ration care for patients based on who is most likely to survive.

“We are in a totally unprecedented health crisis in this country,” former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said.

“The disease is everywhere — Midwest, West Coast, East Coast, North, South. Health care workers are exhausted. Hospitals are totally full.”

People wait inside vehicles at a drive-through COVID-19 testing site at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida on Thursday. Picture: AFP

The FDA’s vaccine advisory board, which includes scientists, doctors, and pharmaceutical representatives, met all day on Friday (AEDT) to consider the safety of the Pfizer vaccine which has already been cleared for use in Britain, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

The approval within days of the Pfizer vaccine by the FDA is expected to be followed shortly after by FDA approval of the vaccine produced by US biotech company Moderna.

The moves will trigger one of the largest rollouts of any vaccine in history as the US seeks to vaccinate as many of its 330 million people as quickly as it possibly can.

But the effort is already being hampered by uncertainty over supplies and over who should be prioritised for the vaccine.

The line-up of cars outside the testing site at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami. Picture: AFP

Federal guidelines say that elderly people in nursing homes and frontline healthcare workers should receive the vaccine first. But there has been no clear determination on which segments of society should receive preference after that, with elderly America, federal workers, essential workers and transit employees all in the mix for an early jab. States will decide the order in which vaccinations are given.

Polls show that between one quarter and one third of Americans say they will not get a vaccine when it becomes available because of concerns about its safety.

It is expected that those Americans who are under 60 and do not have underlying health conditions will have to wait until at least May or June to receive a vaccine.

The president-elect Joe Biden says that he will recommend that mask be worn across the country for the first 100 days of his administration regardless of the extent of the vaccine rollout.

Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia