US vaccinations are increasing as 2nd COVID-19 admission approaches

WASHINGTON – Hundreds more hospitals across the country began handing out COVID-19 injections to their employees on Tuesday in a rapid expansion of US vaccination drive, while a second vaccine was on the cusp of government licensing.

A day after the rollout of Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus shots, the Food and Drug Administration said its preliminary analysis confirmed the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine developed by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health. A panel of outside experts is expected to recommend the formula Thursday, with the FDA’s green light shortly thereafter.

The Moderna vaccine uses the same technology as that of Pfizer-BioNTech and showed similarly strong protection against COVID-19, but is easier to handle because it does not need to be stored in the freezer at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 70 degrees Celsius).

Another weapon against the outbreak can’t come soon enough: The US death toll passed a whopping 300,000 Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University, with an average of about 2,400 people dying per day.

The devastating toll is only expected to increase in the coming weeks, fueled by Christmas and New Year travel, family gatherings and lax adherence to masks and other precautions.

Wrapped in dry ice, shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine began arriving Tuesday at more than 400 additional hospitals and other distribution locations.

On Wednesday, health professionals from Naval Hospital Jacksonville will receive vaccinations, as will employees from UF Health Gainesville. Baptist Health said it will likely follow next week.

The first 3 million shots are strictly rationed to primary care health workers and nursing home patients, and hundreds of millions of shots will be needed over the next few months to protect most Americans.

The rollout has been an encouragement to exhausted doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel across the country.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, speaking at a press conference in West Palm Beach on Tuesday, reminded the public that the shot comes in two doses.

“Both Moderna and Pfizer, people think the first shot provides some protection, but of course you’re going to need that to have stamina,” he said.

RELATED: Florida announces delay in delivery of the Pfizer vaccine

DeSantis said he plans to reveal more about vaccines coming to long-term care facilities in the near future. He believes the FDA will approve the Moderna vaccine for emergency use, and he says if it does, the second vaccine could arrive in Florida early next week.

Nearly 6,000 vaccine doses have arrived in Georgia and are being administered in Chatham, Glynn and surrounding counties. But health officials in Georgia say the general public may have to wait until the summer to get a vaccine.

While vaccinations take place across the country, health experts and leaders in the Jacksonville area are still calling for everyone to wear a mask, including hundreds of Florida doctors and mayors.

The federal government plans hundreds of additional shipments over the weekend.

Shots to nursing home residents won’t begin in most states until next week, when about 1,100 facilities will begin vaccinations. Government officials predict that 20 million Americans will be able to get their first shots by the end of December, and 30 million more in January.

That projection assumes rapid approval of the Moderna vaccine, which also requires two injections for full protection. The US government has purchased 100 million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine and is ordering 200 million doses of the Moderna serum. Assuming there are no production or distribution delays, that would be enough to vaccinate 150 million Americans by mid-2021.

Elsewhere in the world, the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine is given in Great Britain and Canada. And European Union regulators have moved a meeting to review the vaccine to December 21, more than a week ahead of schedule, amid pressure from Germany and other countries on the continent.

In examining the initial results of a study involving 30,000 individuals, the FDA found that Moderna’s vaccine worked much the same as that of Pfizer-BioNTech.

The Moderna vaccine was more than 94% effective in preventing COVID-19 disease overall, and 86% effective in people aged 65 and older. The FDA has not identified any major safety concerns. Side effects can include fever, fatigue, and pain as the vaccine activates the immune system.

Even such a large study cannot detect very rare problems. But the FDA looked carefully for signs of allergic reactions after Britain reported some possible reactions last week in people with a history of severe allergies who received the Pfizer-BioNTech injection.

The FDA found no serious allergic reactions in the Moderna study. About 1.5% of vaccine recipients and 1.1% who received sham injections reported potentially minor “hypersensitivity reactions”.

The shots from both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are so-called mRNA vaccines. They are not made with the coronavirus itself, which means that there is no chance that anyone will be able to see it from the photos. Instead, the vaccine contains a piece of genetic code that trains the immune system to recognize the enriched protein on the surface of the virus.

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Associated Press writers Tamara Lush, Holly Ramer and Candice Choi contributed to this report. Porter reported from Newark, New Jersey.

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The Associated Press Department of Health and Science is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science Education Department. The AP is solely responsible for all content.