The Food and Drug Administration approved the second coronavirus vaccine for emergency use late Friday, giving the government another arrow in its quiver as it embarks on a historic campaign to defeat the pandemic.
The vaccine, produced by pharmaceutical giant Moderna with assistance from the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed program, received the final green light from the FDA after clinical trials proved it to be 94% effective in preventing COVID-19.
Moderna expects to ship millions of doses across the country in the coming days.
The first FDA-approved vaccine, developed by Pfizer and BioNTech without help from Operation Warp Speed, has already been administered to hundreds of thousands of Americans, and the Moderna approval allows federal and state governments to pick up the pace.
The second vaccine approval could not have come too soon.
The pandemic is resurging across the nation in catastrophic numbers, with the U.S. recording more than 3,000 deaths per day throughout this week. The grim total U.S. death toll tops 312,000.
The U.S. is still laboring to vaccinate high-risk health care workers, nursing home residents and staff.
Once that category of inoculations are done, front-line workers like cops, firefighters and EMTs as well as people with preexisting conditions will be up next. The general public likely won’t be in line for coronavirus shots until this spring.
