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Medicine United States

Pfizer To Supply US With 100 Million More Vaccine Doses (bloomberg.com) 57

Pfizer and partner BioNTech agreed to supply an additional 100 million doses of their Covid-19 vaccine to the U.S., as the country seeks to widen its immunization program and revive its economy. From a report: The agreement brings the total number of doses to be delivered to the U.S. to 200 million, the companies said Wednesday in a statement. The drugmaker expects to deliver all the doses to U.S. vaccine and drug accelerator Operation Warp Speed by July 31. Countries around the world are seeking supplies of vaccine they hope will allow the reopening of schools and businesses and the resumption of travel. The U.K. has also begun administering doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, and European drug authorities cleared it for use on Monday.

The U.S. has been working to expand supplies of the front-runner vaccine, in light of the drugmakers' commitments to other countries. Earlier this month, the U.S. exercised an option to buy 100 million additional vaccine doses from Moderna, doubling the number it has on order from that company to 200 million. Like Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine, Moderna's is a two-shot regimen based on new technology known as messenger RNA, but it doesn't have to be stored at the same ultracold temperatures as the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

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Pfizer To Supply US With 100 Million More Vaccine Doses

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  • If we want fake vaccines, we'll just use saline solution.

    Seriously, I hope Pfizer gouged the hell out of "He whose name need not be spoken" for this batch.

    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      If he were paying for it I'd agree with you, but it's my tax dollars the moron is spending.

  • by ranton ( 36917 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @03:53PM (#60860830)

    With Pfizer and Moderna combined it looks like 400 million doses by the end of June, or about 200 million adults. That is just about full coverage, and should cover everyone who wants the vaccine. So this appears in line with things starting to get back to normal by late-summer / early-fall as long as people actually get the shots.

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      That ignores wastage. In some states, as much as 5% of vaccines get wasted for various reasons. And given the extreme levels of refrigeration required for the Pfizer vaccine, I would expect that number to be considerably higher.

      I'm guessing it will be closer to 175M when all is said and done, but that's an absolute guess.

      • by Entrope ( 68843 )

        Where does your 5% number come from? For quite a while now, we'll be in a situation where people are lined up to get the vaccine, so there's very little to think it will go bad in the freezer. Pfizer's vaccine is good for up to 5 days in a normal (2-8 degrees C) refrigerator, and their vials have a little bit extra to boot.

        Overall, there seems like little reason to expect much wastage with the first few vaccines.

        • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @06:55PM (#60861240) Homepage Journal

          From the NIH [nih.gov].

          Less frequently used vaccines had rates as high as 50%, but that's mostly because of expiration. I'm pretty sure that won't be a factor. But refrigeration failures can and do occur. And no matter how hard they try to plan things, they're likely to end up making mistakes in rural areas, distributing a few too many doses that end up not getting used and can't be sent back before they go bad. That all adds up.

          It's possible that I'm being too cynical. Like I said, I'm really just guessing about what the numbers will be. But we have to assume the wastage will be nonzero even if everything is perfectly planned and the only remaining problem is human error.

  • Trillions and trillions every month, trashing the dollar... Is even 1% of it going into the war effort?

    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      Which war? The one against taxpayers? That's the only one that I've noticed is still raging.

      • Well, I was kinda thinking of the covid thing. We are losing that battle so that trillionaires can be trillionaires.

  • by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @04:58PM (#60860946) Journal
    Pfizer said last Thursday, it has millions of doses sitting in its warehouses going unused [forbes.com] because they haven't been told where to send them.

    Now we're going to buy 100 million more doses? Are those going to sit around as well? Is this another scam by the con artist to spend taxpayer money to enrich the 1% at the expense of the taxpayers?

    At the same time these millions of doses are sitting around doing nothing, the states were told they would be receiving fewer doses [cnn.com] than they were initially told.

    On top of all this, only 1 million vaccines have been given [thehill.com] so far. This is far below the 20 million vaccines [reuters.com] the con artist said would be given by the end of the year. 19 million more vaccines given by December 31st? Not gonna happen.
    • Now we're going to buy 100 million more doses? Are those going to sit around as well? Is this another scam by the con artist to spend taxpayer money to enrich the 1% at the expense of the taxpayers?

      Erm, if you read TFS, the 100 million more doses are going to be delivered around the end of July 2020.

      At the same time these millions of doses are sitting around doing nothing, the states were told they would be receiving fewer doses [cnn.com] than they were initially told.

      That's not what your source says:

      A Health and Human Services spokesperson said reports of jurisdictions' allocations being reduced "are incorrect," and that overall states will receive their full supplies, though deliveries may be spread out over a longer time frame.

      "As was done with the initial shipments of Pfizer vaccine, jurisdictions will receive vaccine at different sites over several days. This ease

  • I thought they were supposed to create supplies of the vaccines being tested, and then keep the ones that passed the trials. What happened to that plan? If they had done that, then they could distribute it now, and the pandemic would be over in a month.
  • COVID is quite a bad thing and if you are living in big cities then you definitely need to move out somewhere. At least far from centers of infection. Here is a Certified Movers [topmoversreviews.org] that will help you to move out quickly and save. Be sure to check it out, because it would be useful for you. Good luck with moving out and stay healthy, pal.

A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson

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