Covid-19: FDA approves Moderna vaccine as US starts vaccinating health workers

ABSTRACT

Gustave Perna, head of the US government’s Operation Warp Speed, which is in charge of distributing the vaccines, apologized for some states receiving smaller doses of the Pfizer vaccine than expected, blaming manufacturing problems.3 Other reports said that the Pfizer vials had more doses than expected and thus were capable of immunizing more people.4 Building confidence Two vaccines will now be available to many of the 21 million frontline healthcare workers in the US. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) panel voted on 20 December that next in line should be “frontline essential workers” and people over 75.5 The first person to receive the vaccine was Sandra Lindsay, director of critical care nursing at Long Island Jewish Health Center in New York City, an area hard hit at the beginning of the pandemic in the US. The CDC says that people who have had an allergic reaction to an ingredient in the vaccines should not receive the vaccine, while people who have not had allergic reactions to injectable vaccines but have had allergic reactions to food, pets, or medicines—but not anaphylactic reactions—may receive it.