The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
A lot of unknowns surrounding Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The announcement Monday that a COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer had been proven 90 percent effective was cheered by many, including Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, who praised the “very good, strong trials.”
But there are still steps that need to be taken before the vaccine, which was partially developed in Connecticut, is available to the public, and there are even more steps before it’s widely available.
Here are some of the key questions still surrounding the vaccine, and early attempts to answer them by officials from Pfizer and the state.
When will the vaccine be available?
There will likely be some vaccine available by the end of the year, provided it meets safety standards, and gets appropriate approvals from the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. John Burkhardt, Pfizer’s senior vice president of global drug safety research and development and Groton labs site director, said during Monday’s press conference.
Now that data on the vaccine’s effectiveness is available, Burkhardt said information on its safety should be available in a few weeks.
Once that data is available, Pfizer will take it to the FDA and apply for emergency-use access. Burkhardt said that process typically has a “rapid turnaround” and would likely be complete in “weeks, rather than months.”
How many doses will be available?
By the end of this year, anywhere from 5 million to 50 million doses could be available in the United States, Burkhardt said.
Because each person receiving the vaccine gets two doses, about three weeks apart, that would mean the doses would serve between 2.5 million and 25 million people.
How many doses will be available in Connecticut?
That depends largely on how many doses there are nationwide. Lamont has said in the past that Connecticut typically gets 1 percent of the U.S. allotment of vaccines.
So, if 50 million doses are available nationwide, that would mean 500,000 in Connecticut, or enough for 250,000 people.
Will I have to get it every year like the flu shot?
That is unknown, Burkhardt said. “We follow the science,” he said. “We do not know the answer to that question.”
He said, to get a better idea of how long the vaccine lasts, Pfizer will follow patients enrolled in the trial for two years “with an emphasis on safety.”
Who can get it first?
Once a vaccine is available, it would be prioritized for “health care workers, frontline staff, the elderly, those who are high-risk, who have multiple co-morbidities, nursing homes and other areas that could be considered hot spots,” said Dr. Reginald Eadie, president and CEO of Trinity Health of New England and co-chairman of Lamont’s vaccine advisory group.
When can the average person get the vaccine?
Though it was unclear exactly when this will happen, Burkhardt said, once the FDA gives the vaccine emergency-use approval, Pfizer will apply for a biologic license application, which would allow for a larger-scale production of the vaccine, with the goal of producing 1 billion or more doses by the end of next year.
How is Pfizer’s Groton facility involved?
Pfizer is a multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in New York, but with offices and laboratories around the world. Its largest research and development facility is in Connecticut.
Burkhardt said the Groton facility played a key role in the vaccine’s development, including leading early animal trials to determine drug safety, among other duties.
Is Pfizer the only company making the vaccine?
Pfizer worked with the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech on this vaccine.