According to reports, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel overwhelmingly backed Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine clearing the path for distribution for emergency use across the United States next week. Similar to the Pfizer vaccine, reports say frontline healthcare workers will receive priority vaccination beginning next week. In the larger scheme, health officials expect to inoculate 20 million people with the first dose by the end of the year.
It is important to note, the committee's decision isn't an endorsement from the entire FDA. Members of the advisory panel expressed that the agency will still need to gather more data about the vaccine's safety and effectiveness.
“I don’t want people to interpret this the same way they would a licensed vaccine,” said Dr. Cody Meissner, a voting member of the committee and an infectious diseases expert at Tufts University School of Medicine. Meissner also noted that the endorsement “based on the available evidence, but that’s limited.”
Source: cnbc.com
