Corona vaccination could start in the US on Monday

The existing doses of the approved vaccine from German pharmaceutical company Biontech and its US partner Pfizer are currently being packaged, a White House representative said on Saturday. On Sunday, these cans would initially be delivered to more than 600 locations. The vaccine will be used from Monday, said Gustave Perna.

Perna is responsible for the logistics of Operation Warp Speed, the White House vaccination project. The corona vaccine from Biontech and Pfizer received emergency approval in the United States on Friday evening (local time). It can now be used on people aged 16 and over.

Trump wants to start this weekend

The elected US President Donald Trump had previously promised his compatriots that vaccination should start this weekend. The first vaccine will be administered in less than 24 hours, Trump said in a video published on Twitter. However, his health minister Alex Azar had spoken of Monday or Tuesday.

His government has already started to send the vaccine from the Mainz-based pharmaceutical company Biontech and the US company Pfizer to all US states. Their governors would decide who the vaccinations would be given there first.

Trump stressed that vaccinations are free for all Americans. Looking at the vaccine's development in record time, he said, This is one of the greatest scientific achievements in history. The vaccine will save millions of lives and soon end the pandemic once and for all. Trump presented the development as a success for his administration, which is not true. The president said, The pandemic may have started in China, but we are ending it right here in America.

Republican Trump lost the US election on November 3rd to Democrat Joe Biden. Experts also attribute this to Trump's crisis management in the pandemic, which Americans give bad marks in surveys. Biden is to be sworn in on January 20th. The Democrat wants to start a 100-day plan to fight the coronavirus immediately afterwards.

Approval is still pending in Europe

An application has also been made to the European Medicines Agency (Ema) for approval of the corona vaccine in the EU, a decision on this is still pending. At the beginning of December, the British regulatory authority for pharmaceuticals granted the Biontech / Pfizer preparation emergency approval. This made Great Britain the first country in the world to approve the vaccine. In the meantime, Canada, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, among others, have given approvals for the vaccine.

The so-called mRNA vaccine from Pfizer / Biontech has an effectiveness of around 95 percent according to extensive test series, as the manufacturers had announced. This means that 95 percent fewer diseases occurred among the subjects in the vaccinated group than among the subjects in the control group. The study has now also been published in the renowned New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

According to the manufacturer, the vaccine works equally well across all age groups and other demographic differences and shows practically no serious side effects. The tests had examined the protection against Covid 19 disease.