As FDA authorizes a second Covid-19 vaccine, US reports highest number of daily cases

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Sat, 2020-12-19 09:54 — mike kraft

As FDA authorizes a second Covid-19 vaccine, US reports highest number of daily cases A second Covid-19 vaccine will soon be shipped out across the country -- a "remarkable scientific achievement," according to one expert, that brings the country one step close to the end of a brutal pandemic. Christina Maxouris, CNN CNN

(CNN) A second Covid-19 vaccine will soon be shipped out across the country -- a "remarkable scientific achievement," according to one expert, that brings the country one step closer to the end of a brutal pandemic.

"It is through the dedicated efforts of our federal scientists and their collaborators at Moderna and in academia, the clinical staff who conducted the vaccine's rigorous clinical trials, and the tens of thousands of study participants who selflessly rolled up their sleeves, that another safe and highly effective vaccine to protect against COVID-19 will soon be rolled out to the American public," Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said in a statement.

Now that the Food and Drug Administration has authorized Moderna's vaccine, advisers to the CDC must now vote to recommend it, and the CDC must accept that recommendation before vaccinations can begin. The advisory group is scheduled to meet Saturday morning. ...

Despite the promising news, it's not quite the end. In many parts of the US, Covid-19 is still raging across communities.

More than 18,000 Americans died of Covid-19 in the past week. The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects another more than 237,000 Americans will die of Covid-19 over the next three months.
For the 13th day in a row, the country beat its own hospitalization record. There are now more than 114,700 Covid-19 patients across the US, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
For the past week, the US reported an average of more than 219,000 new Covid-19 infections every day. On Friday, the country broke a record, reporting more than 249,700 new infections. ...
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center has now launched a new vaccine tracking tool that offers "daily updates and nationwide perspective on the progress of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout" in the US.
The tool currently captures data from 10 states that have begun publicly reporting the number of vaccines administered, including Connecticut, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia. ...