US readies for first Covid-19 vaccinations as country nears 300,000 deaths

More than 30,000 Americans died due to Covid-19 in the first 13 days of December, according to data from Johns Hopkins University (JHU). It put the country’s death toll since the beginning of the pandemic at nearly 300,000 as of Sunday night, with more than 16.2 million reported cases.

Keeping it cold

The president of UPS healthcare, Wes Wheeler, told CNN Sunday evening that all of the flights carrying the vaccine had taken off from the Louisville, Kentucky, airport and nearly all of the ground operations had departed.

The off-load will begin at 8 a.m. Monday, meaning the vaccines will be delivered shortly thereafter, around 8:10 or 8:15 a.m., according to Wheeler.

One of the biggest challenges the carrier faces is maintaining the temperature needed for the vaccine, he said.

“The minus 100-degree requirement with dry ice, making sure it moves, making sure the temperature is maintained, making sure the dry ice that follows the shipment after the vaccine arrives, that’s important also,” he said. “Making sure that we coordinate the kits that are going out ahead of the vaccine so the administration sites have everything they need to do the dosing as soon as tomorrow morning.”

Wheeler told CNN’s Ana Cabrera that the command center for UPS is watching every single shipment and tracking all of the packages. He said they can see within 10 feet every time a package arrives at one of the UPS sites around the country.

First batch arrives in Los Angeles

“This is a major milestone for science, our country and our community. Thank you to all those who made this delivery possible, and are part of the incredible effort to distribute vaccines around the world,” LAX said.

The virus is still raging across the US with different states varying in their approach to tackling the pandemic, even as they prepare to receive the vaccine.

Sunday marked the third consecutive day California has had over 30,000 daily new positive coronavirus cases, according to data released by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

More than 90% of California residents are under orders to stay at home, except for essential needs like grocery shopping, banking, and doctor appointments. The state mandated residents to stay at home once ICU capacity for the region fell below 15%.

States balance precautions with vaccine distribution

“We are at a critical point,” Sisolak said, “We will be monitoring and evaluating our current situation day to day and week by week will remain under the current restrictions for now, with the goal of getting through the next month.”

The state is expecting to receive the first shipment of the vaccine on Monday, Sisolak said. While he did not mention exactly when vaccinations would start, Sisolak said plans are in place to distribute the first allocation to frontline health care workers and staff and residents in the nursing facilities for “immediate vaccination.”

In Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee also announced Sunday that his state would be receiving the first vaccine shipments on Monday, with vaccinations expected to begin Tuesday.

An initial 62,000 doses will be distributed to 40 facilities and 29 counties, Michele Roberts, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Washington Department of Health said.

“Today’s news means we will see an end to this pandemic,” Inslee said. But he warned that residents should continue heading safety precautions despite the start of vaccinations. “I want to be clear, this does not change the importance of our safety precautions. Masking, physical distancing and limiting interactions is just as important tomorrow as it was yesterday.”

Keep wearing masks

The director of the National Institutes of Health warned Sunday that those who receive the vaccine should continue to wear their masks.

“You still need to think of yourself as potentially contagious even though you are protected from getting sick at a very high percentage of certainty,” Dr. Francis Collins told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.”

It’s not yet known whether the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines prevent people becoming asymptomatic carriers of the virus.

Collins told Todd that it was “an urgent question to discover” and figuring it out will take a couple of months.

“Masks are still going to be part of our life. We need to recognize that and not step away or start to drop our guard,” said Collins.

But he pleaded with people to get the vaccination, saying that its safety and efficacy details were publicly available.

“I think all reasonable people, if they had the chance to sort of put the noise aside and disregard all those terrible conspiracy theories, would look at this and say, ‘I want this for my family, I want it for myself,'” he said of the vaccine. “People are dying right now. How could you possibly say let’s wait and see if that might mean some terrible tragedy is going to befall,” he said.