Fauci says Biden should get vaccine as FDA gives Moderna the green light

President-elect Joe Biden should be vaccinated against the coronavirus as soon as possible for “security reasons”, top US public health expert Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday, as a second vaccine candidate, made by Moderna, received an encouraging assessment ahead of likely approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

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A Pfizer-made Covid-19 vaccine is starting to be administered to high-priority populations across the US – as the virus continues to surge across the country.

Monday saw 193,454 new cases and 1,311 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The seven-day moving average for daily new cases stood at more than 209,000, or more than one a minute.

The US death toll has passed 300,000 and the number of Americans hospitalized continues to climb, reaching a record 110,549, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

On Monday night, Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, told MSNBC: “We’re still in the middle of what will be a very, very, very dark winter. There are probably tens of thousands of deaths left before the end of the year and more deaths after that.”

But the start of the massive vaccination campaign has provided a glimmer of hope. The first doses from Pfizer and BioNTech were administered to high-priority populations on Monday.

At a press briefing, health secretary Alex Azar said 636 vaccination sites would receive doses by Wednesday, with another 581 following by the end of the week. The first rollout of the Pfizer vaccine will see a total of 2.9m vaccinations, Azar said.

The first to receive shots were mostly high-priority healthcare workers. Sandra Lindsay, a nurse at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, was publicly given the first shot.

“I hope this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in our history,” Lindsay told reporters.

On Tuesday, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy said the first vaccinations in his state had been “administered to our heroic frontline healthcare workers”.

“This is a day we’ve been waiting nearly a year for,” Murphy said. “It was a thrill to witness these first vaccinations.”

FDA approval for the Moderna vaccine is likely by the end of the week. The company released data on Tuesday and will meet with the FDA on Thursday, where a committee of medical and scientific advisers will decide final approval for emergency use. Azar said 6m doses would be shipped on approval.

On Tuesday, the FDA said the Moderna vaccine was effective without any specific safety issues in adults over the age of 18. The company’s earlier assessment said its vaccine had an efficacy rate of 94.1% in a trial of 30,000 people. Side effects, which can include fever, headache and fatigue, were unpleasant but not dangerous, the agency found. The Moderna vaccine is easier to handle than the Pfizer vaccine, which requires extremely cold storage.

The federal government hopes to see 20 million people immunized with a first dose – both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two – by the end of December, and an additional 30 million by the end of January. Azar said the general population could expect to have a vaccine available by the end of June, though that timeline rests on the approval of two more vaccines, one developed by Johnson & Johnson and one by AstraZeneca, that are still in the late-stage clinical trials.

Polls show more Americans willing to get the vaccine, though skepticism remains. A poll from ABC News and Ipsos found that more than 80% said they would get the vaccine, while a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found 71% said they would “definitely or probably” have a shot.

Politicians and public health leaders have said they will be inoculated in public to increase trust in the vaccine – Biden among them.

“We want him fully protected as he enters the presidency in January,” Fauci told ABC on Tuesday. He also said Mike Pence should be vaccinated, adding that Donald Trump should be protected by antibodies remaining from his bout with the virus in October.

As most Americans must wait at least a few more months for a vaccine, public officials and health experts have pleaded with the public to continue wearing masks and social-distancing, especially in the holiday season.

The Trump administration continues to attract criticism for its decision to hold a series of large-scale holiday parties at which such precautions are not fully observed. On Tuesday morning the president’s daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka Trump, publicly questioned public lockdown orders.