US hopes to vaccinate 20M this year, 100M by end of February

The US hopes to be able to immunize 20 million people against COVID-19 this month — and 100 million by the end of February, according to a leader of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed.

If vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna soon get emergency approval — as expected — 20 million of the most vulnerable Americans could get shots by the end of the year, Moncef Slaoui, the operation’s scientific adviser, said Wednesday.

Another 30 million could get shots in January and then 50 million in February — possibly even more if other leading vaccine candidates get approved by then, too, said Slaoui, who was appointed by President Trump in May.

“Between mid-December and the end of February, we will have potentially immunized 100 million people,” Slaoui said, according to Agence France-Presse.

That is around 40 percent of the nation’s adult population and “really more or less the size of the significant at-risk population: the elderly, the health care workers, the first-line workers, people with comorbidities,” Slaoui said,

That will include an “ample” supply to vaccinate the 3 million residents of long-term care facilities, he insisted.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine could be the first to get emergency use authorization (EUA) in the US when the Food and Drug Administration considers it after an advisory committee next Thursday. The Moderna-NIH could follow after a similar meeting on Dec. 17.

Other candidates by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca-Oxford are in the late stages of development and could soon fo𓂃llow, he said.

“When an EUA decision comes, distribution to the American people becomes immediate within 24 hours, that’s our goal,” said Gen. Gus Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed.

With Post wires