TAMPA, Fla. — After receiving an emergency use authorization from the FDA, Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine is set to join Pfizer in the fight against COVID-19.
As of Saturday morning, 32,707 Floridians have been vaccinated with the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. That number could increase as early as Monday when Moderna's shots could begin being administered.
Florida will be getting 367,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis. But the focus will still be on group "1a" which is comprised of residents and employees within long-term care facilities and healthcare workers.
"Even in Florida, we have, I think, 1.1 million people in '1a.' So, that's a lot of people, we're not even close to getting that many vaccine doses," explained Dr. Michael Teng, a virologist at USF Health and Tampa General Hospital.
Even though Florida is a long way off from vaccinating everyone in priority groups who wants to be vaccinated, discussions have started around who to offer the vaccine to next. The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is meeting tomorrow to decide just that.
Dr. Teng believes those next in line will include essential workers and first responders, like police officers and firefighters.
It could expand to other essential workers who cannot work from home.
"Maybe teachers. Maybe, you've got people who are grocery store clerks, the people who do our utilities, our waste collection," Dr. Teng said. "These are people that without them, you know, we would not have water, we wouldn't have electricity."
While it still might be a while for everyone else to have access-- we are moving in the right direction.
"You're looking at something that can actually be stored, as my friend put it, in the same place that you store your ice cream, in a regular freezer. So this is actually going to make it a lot easier to distribute that vaccine and get it to places where maybe the Pfizer vaccine is not as easily available," Dr. Teng explained.
Moderna is the latest vaccine to get FDA emergency use authorization, but it likely won’t be the last. We could see additional vaccines in the new year from creators like Johnson and Johnson, Novavax, and AstraZeneca.
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