AP Photo/Evan Vucci
- Moncef Slaoui, the top scientist advising the US government’s Operation Warp Speed, predicted that more than 100 million Americans would be vaccinated against COVID-19 within the next 100 days.
- Slaoui said 20 million Americans should be immunized in December, with 30 million more in January and 50 million in February.
- By the end of February, “we will have potentially immunized 100 million people, which is really more or less the size of the significant at-risk population: the elderly, the healthcare workers, the first-line workers, people with comorbidities,” Slaoui said.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The co-leader of the US government’s Operation Warp Speed coronavirus vaccine initiative on Wednesday outlined the most ambitious timeline yet for vaccinating the most vulnerable Americans against COVID-19.
Moncef Slaoui, Warp Speed’s chief advisor, predicted that 100 million Americans would be immunized by the end of February.
Twenty million Americans should be vaccinated in December, followed by 30 million more in January and 50 million more in February, the former pharmaceutical executive said in a press briefing.
By then, “we will have potentially immunized 100 million people, which is really more or less the size of the significant at-risk population: the elderly, the healthcare workers, the first-line workers, people with comorbidities,” Slaoui said.
His prediction was based on anticipated supply from Pfizer and Moderna, the two vaccine frontrunners. Both companies have submitted their vaccine candidates to the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization.
Results from late-stage studies that enrolled tens of thousands of volunteers indicated that both vaccines were highly effective — about 95% — at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 compared with a placebo. Questions remain about how durable that protection is and whether the vaccines also reduce transmission and prevent asymptomatic infections.
The FDA is now reviewing both vaccine applications and is expected to issue decisions on emergency OKs before the year's end. British health authorities authorized Pfizer's vaccine on Wednesday, making the UK the first Western country to approve a coronavirus vaccine.
Warp Speed is prepared to start shipping doses to states within a day or two of an authorization decision, officials said. The federal government is splitting up limited doses proportionally to each state's population, with governors deciding where Warp Speed ships the doses in their states.
State officials will also be responsible for ultimately deciding which Americans are the first to get the vaccines, which are given as a two-dose regimen. An advisory group to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that frontline healthcare workers and nursing-home residents get the highest priority.
Warp Speed has spent billions to secure supplies from these leading drugmakers.
Slaoui also said he expected additional experimental COVID-19 vaccine programs run by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca to produce definitive data in January. If either or both of those vaccines were to secure a regulatory green light, that would add further upside to Warp Speed's supply projections, he said.