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FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn front-ran the big news everyone's been waiting for earlier today, saying the agency plans to approve Pfizer's vaccine for emergency use. The clearance would mark a major turning point in the pandemic. CNBC's health team has you covered on the vaccine rollout.
Programming note: Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks to Meg Tirrell in a special edition of the CNBC Healthy Returns livestream. We'll talk about the latest on the Covid spread, the vaccine rollout – and keeping your business and family safe during this holiday season. Register to join us this Wednesday, December 16.
| | First Covid-19 vaccine gets a historic vote, but it wasn't unanimous | The FDA's advisory committee voted 17-4 (with one abstention) in favor of Pfizer and BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine Thursday night after a day of debate and presentations. The landmark meeting ended abruptly afterwards, not giving the panelists who didn't support it a chance to discuss why. We heard from three of them afterward who all said it was because the vote endorsed the vaccine in kids ages 16 and 17 – for which they said the results were "thin."
-Meg Tirrell | | | | U.S. prepares to ship 2.9 million vaccine doses to 64 jurisdictions | Following the overwhelming vote, the FDA is expected to clear the vaccine as early as today. It will kick start the government's distribution of the doses to 64 states, territories and major cities across the nation. Some 2.9 million doses will be distributed within the first 24 hours after getting the green light. That will be followed by an additional 2.9 million doses 21 days later for patients to get their second shot, according to Gen. Gustave Perna, who oversees logistics for Operation Warp Speed. FedEx and UPS said their shipping networks are ready to start transporting the vaccine as soon as possible, even as the companies face the most hectic holiday shipping peak on record.
-Berkeley Lovelace Jr. | | | | Privacy concerns a challenge in effort to track vaccinations | Federal and state officials are hammering out plans to track vaccinations nationwide since both Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines require two doses about a month apart for maximum protection. That means states need to remind patients to return for their second shot. One logistical concern is what happens if someone gets their first shot, and then travels across state lines when they need the second shot. To address that, the CDC has requested every state turn over personally identifiable health data to allow the federal government to track people across state boundaries. That's unprecedented, as vaccine registries in the U.S. have always been a state effort and attempts to create a federal registry have previously been thwarted by privacy advocates across the political spectrum.
-Will Feuer | | | | Vaccine offers exhausted health-care workers hope, but not immediate relief | The nation's hospitals are again strained with a record numbers of Covid patients. Early on in the pandemic, travel nurses would rush to hot spots to ease staffing shortages. That's not the case now as the outbreak stresses hospital systems – and workers – across several parts of the country. While a vaccine will surely help, it's not going to do much to slow deaths or alleviate overburdened hospitals until the late spring, according to a White House task force weekly report, which was obtained by CNBC. "We are so tired — emotionally, physically, spiritually," Tayler Oakes, a 27-year-old travel nurse from Tennessee who is treating Covid-19 patients at a small Navajo Nation health-care facility, told me in a phone interview.
-Noah Higgins-Dunn | | Healthy Returns Livestream | December 16, 2020
Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks with Meg Tirrell for a special edition of the CNBC Healthy Returns livestream.
Viewers will find out what Dr. Fauci sees as we enter the holiday season with Covid cases and deaths surging, get his thoughts on the vaccination rollout, and hear his advice for the incoming administration.
This livestream is sponsored by Change Healthcare | |
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