WASHINGTON • The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine will reach hospitals across the United States by today, a top official said, ready to be injected into the arms of millions of Americans as the world's death toll reaches 1.6 million.
The imminent start of the mass vaccination campaign in the world's hardest-hit country comes as Italy overtakes Britain as the European nation with the highest coronavirus death toll.
"I am worried about the two weeks of Christmas holidays. We are up against a dramatic pandemic which is ongoing - the battle still has not been won," Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza said as the country's 64,036 deaths surpassed Britain's 64,026.
Regional Affairs Minister Francesco Boccia said that unless people adopted a careful approach, "the risk of a third wave is almost certain".
Infections in the US are still soaring, with 1.1 million new cases confirmed in the past five days and a death toll nearing 300,000.
Doses of the Pfizer vaccine started leaving the firm's factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan, yesterday, stored in boxes of dry ice that can stay at minus 70 deg C to preserve the drug.
General Gus Perna, who is overseeing the massive logistical operation, likened the moment to the turning point of World War II.
"I am absolutely 100 per cent confident that we are going to distribute safely, this precious commodity, this vaccine, needed to defeat the enemy Covid."
Gen Perna said hundreds of sites, including hospitals and distribution centres, would receive the vaccines from today to Wednesday, covering the first wave of about three million of the most vulnerable people to be vaccinated.
The US plans to inoculate 20 million people this month and another 25 million to 40 million next month, as well as in February.
"We would have immunised 100 million people by the first quarter of 2021," US Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Moncef Slaoui said in an interview with Fox News yesterday.
Federal health authorities recommend that healthcare workers and nursing home residents be at the front of the line, but the final decisions are left to the states.
In a metropolitan area where one in 20 people has been infected with Covid-19, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti presented another warning: They are dying too.
"This week, every 20 minutes someone in LA County is dying from Covid-19," he tweeted.
Los Angeles County, the most populous in the US with 10 million people, said on Friday that the number of infections had surpassed 500,000. They rose by 11,476 to 512,872 on Saturday after rising by a record the day before.
The county is home to the highest number of infections and fatalities in the US. The jump in cases came two weeks after millions travelled across the country for the Thanksgiving break.
As at yesterday noon, the US had reported more than 16 million Covid-19 infections and nearly 298,000 deaths. Los Angeles is in week two of its second lockdown and is part of a region in California that has imposed more restrictions through the holiday season.
"Some people aren't doing what we're asking them to do, and I think the biggest problem we have right now is there's so much transmission that when even just a small percentage of people are not taking sensible steps to protect themselves and protect others, it has a tremendous cascading impact," Ms Barbara Ferrer, the county's director of public health, said.
The vaccination campaign could not be coming at a better time.
The Pfizer vaccine has been shown in a clinical trial of 44,000 people to be 95 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19, and no serious safety concerns have been identified. The US became the sixth country to give the green light to the vaccine on Friday, after Britain, Bahrain, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG
