Immune To COVID? New Study Suggests Why

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is poised to grant emergency use authorization to the first-ever COVID-19 vaccine.

The move would clear the way for distribution of the Pfizer vaccine throughout the United States. The authorization could come as soon as Friday evening, The New York Times reported.

An FDA advisory panel on Thursday endorsed the vaccine as safe and effective for use in persons 16 years and older.

Emergency use authorizations allow treatments to move forward before they’ve gone through the full approval process, according to the FDA website. Such authorizations can only be issued during a public health emergency, and the agency must determine that the known and potential benefits of a vaccine outweigh any risk.

Pfizer and partner BioNTech announced results from phase three clinical trials on the vaccine less than a month ago. The companies said the vaccine was shown to be 95% effective against COVID-19 with no serious safety concerns.

The companies anticipate producing 50 million doses of the two-shot vaccine by the end of the year, and up to 1.3 billion in 2021.

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Federal officials have said initial doses, expected to mostly be reserved for health care workers and nursing home residents, could ship within days after the emergency use authorization. Other vulnerable groups will be next in line, with widespread distribution being targeted for spring.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told Good Morning America on Friday that some people could start receiving shots as soon as Monday.

The Pfizer vaccine is the first of several in the pipeline to seek FDA approval. The agency will review one from Moderna next week, and at least two others are expected to follow.

Worldwide COVID-19 cases topped 70 million on Friday, after a daily record of nearly 700,000 new cases was reported Thursday, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University. The disease has killed more than 1.5 million people.

The United States reported more than 3,100 deaths on Wednesday, also a new daily record. In all, the U.S. has recorded more than 15.7 million cases and nearly 300,000 deaths.

Latest Developments

United States:

-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered a halt to indoor dining in New York City starting Monday. "Hospitalizations have not stabilized, and with a rising infection rate and NYC’s density, this means that indoor dining is too high of a risk," Cuomo announced Friday afternoon on Twitter. New York appeared to have the pandemic under control after it raged through the city in the spring, but numbers have soared again in recent weeks as a surge of cases after the Thanksgiving holiday has spread across much of the nation. Nearly 1,700 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized in the city which is three times higher than the number reported a month ago, according to The Associated Press.

-Miami will begin enforcing a midnight to 6 a.m. curfew this weekend. The rule has been in place countywide for months but the city wasn't enforcing it. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has prohibited cities and counties from issuing fines or penalties related to coronavirus restrictions, but some municipalities are trying to work around the rule. Florida has the third highest number of COVID-19 cases in the nation, with South Florida being hit especially hard.

-A county in Hawaii that was believed to be the last in the U.S. untouched by COVID-19 recorded its first case of the disease this week. The Hawaii Department of Health on Thursday reported the case in a resident of Kalawao County on the island of Molokai, according to Hawaii News Now. The person tested positive after returning to the island on a local flight.

Worldwide:

-The U.S. has by far the highest numbers of any nation in the world. Next in order of case numbers are India with about 9.8 million, Brazil with more than 6.7 million, Russia with about 2.5 million and France with about 2.4 million.

-Switzerland ordered shops, bars, restaurants and sports facilities in many areas to begin closing at 7 p.m. each night, the AP reported. Cases have been rising there and hospitals are reportedly close to capacity. The country has recorded more than 373,000 cases and 5,888 deaths.

-A study published by the journal Science Thursday concluded that as many as 300,000 cases of COVID-19 around the world started at a two-day biotech meeting in Boston early this year. The meeting in February had previously been identified as a super spreader event. The study says 100 people were infected at the gathering of Biogen managers. From there, researchers tracked the spread to 29 states in the U.S., as well as parts of Australia, Slovakia and Sweden.

For the latest coronavirus information in your county and a full list of important resources to help you make the smartest decisions regarding the disease, check out our dedicated COVID-19 page.

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