“Today, as I've said before, the end of the pandemic is in sight,” Giroir said. With two companies making vaccine, that will add to the supply that is slowly being rolled out.
“If the Moderna vaccine is authorized, we expect to ship 7.9 million additional doses of vaccines to states next week,” Giroir said.
On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said 2 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine and 5.9 million doses of Moderna’s had been allocated for next week, in anticipation of Moderna’s vaccine winning US Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization by the weekend.
“We still anticipate that every American will have the opportunity to be vaccinated by June,” Giroir said.
He noted that the vaccination program aims to achieve long-term herd immunity, which might start to happen if 75 to 80% of Americans are immunized.
“This will essentially end the pandemic as we know it,” he predicted.