Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
- Dr. Atul Gawande, of President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, said Thursday the rollout of Pfizer’s vaccine could come with “hitches” along the way.
- “The biggest challenge is going to be both production and then getting it into people’s arms,” he said.
- Delivering the vaccine to hospitals in rural locations would be a challenge, he said.
- The rollout of the Pfizer vaccine will take place soon after the Food and Drug Administration gives it emergency use authorization — which is expected any day.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The US could face “hitches” in rolling out Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, a member of President-elect Joe Biden’s Covid advisory board said Thursday.
Dr. Atul Gawande told CNBC that distributing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine “is a Herculean operation and there can be hitches along the way with production at this kind of scale.”
“The biggest challenge is going to be both production and then getting it into people’s arms,” he said. “The whole chain of getting it out on those trucks, but then, the whole chain of getting them into hospitals.”
His comments come after an expert panel of 22 leading scientists and doctors on Thursday voted to endorse emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine during a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee meeting.
The vote shows experts believe the benefits of Pfizer’s shot outweigh the risks, but it is not a final verdict. The FDA is set to give its decision on the shot at any time.
Another hurdle the US will have to face is delivering the vaccine to hospitals in rural locations, the Havard professor said.
"We'll have to work on getting it down to rural areas as fast as possible and I hope the administration is prepared to do that soon," he said.
While the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine prevents people from getting sick with symptoms, "we don't know that it prevents you from carrying an asymptomatic infection that could infect others," he said.
At least 70% of the population would need immunity before the US would reach herd immunity, which broadly protects a population from the virus, according to some health experts.
But Dr. Gawande said it was "a little bit of guesswork exactly when enough immunity would be in the population to shut down transmission entirely and have [the virus] under control."
Operation Warp Speed, the White House's vaccine effort, plans to start distributing 2.9 million doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to 636 distribution sites across the US by the end of this week once the FDA authorize it.
Gustave Perna, the chief operations officer for Operation Warp Speed, said Wednesday an additional 2.9 million doses would be set aside for patients to get their second shot.
He said Tuesday he expected shots to be administered within 96 hours, or four days, of FDA approval.
Other officials and health experts have said Americans would be vaccinated within one or two days of FDA authorization.
Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the head of Operation Warp Speed, said in a CBS News interview Sunday the first vaccine shipment will happen on the day after the vaccine is approved by the FDA.
More than 15.6 million people have been infected with COVID-19 in the US, while more than 292,000 people have died from it, according to the New York Times coronavirus tracker.