Today the top three officials of Operation Warp Speed, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, and Army Gen. Gustave Perna, reported in an update that the first 2.9 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 have gone out to the states which will then distribute them to hospitals and other providers according to their allocation plans, plus another 2.9 million doses that will be used for second shots, in what Azar characterized as a “medical miracle.” Shipments began going out to 636 sites Monday morning, with 145 of them to be completed before the end of the day, Dec. 14, with 425 more on Dec. 15 and the remaining 66 to be completed on Dec. 16. Dr. Slaoui and General Perna both stressed that as more vaccines are approved, first from Moderna and then in January from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, they will be folded into the process as well. Slaoui reported that arrangements have already been made for purchases of 100 million doses from Moderna for the first quarter of 2021 and 100 million more for the second quarter. “This is why we are confident that we will have enough doses to vaccinate the entire U.S. population,” Slaoui said.
The officials reiterated that they are confident the United States can immunize all those in the priority groups (totaling over 100 million people) who want the vaccine, for free, during the first quarter of 2021.
