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US Launching Coronavirus Vaccine Distribution

VOA News

   Super-cooled shipments of a newly approved coronavirus vaccine are set
   to roll out of a Pfizer manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan,
   in tractor-trailers Sunday for rapid air freight distribution to
   regional hubs across the United States.

   Inoculations could begin as early as Monday at a time when COVID-19
   cases are surging and the United States nears 300,000 deaths from the
   virus, according to Johns Hopkins University's Coronavirus Research
   Center.

   The chief officer of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's
   vaccine development program, Army General Gustave Perna, said at a news
   conference Saturday that shipping companies will initially deliver
   vaccine doses to nearly 150 distribution centers, and an additional 450
   or so facilities will get the vaccine by Wednesday.

   The Food and Drug Administration late Friday approved the vaccine,
   developed by U.S. drug maker Pfizer and German partner BioNTech, for
   emergency use. The vaccine, which must be kept at minus 70 degrees
   Celsius, was shown to be 95% effective in preventing COVID-19 in a
   late-stage trial.

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