On the face of it, we are about to face one of the most aggressive vaccination campaigns ever seen. According to Reuters,1 The U.S. government plans to launch an “unstoppable” COVID-19 vaccine campaign in November, provided the U.S. Food and Drug Administration green-lights one or more vaccine candidates.
Considering former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb2 Now a member of the board of directors of Pfizer,3 Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is one of the lead candidates, and weary minds might think that the FDA won’t put up any major hurdles.
According to Reuters, the COVID-19 vaccination campaign “is likely to be compressed into a short period of time, about four to six weeks, to remove any lag between when Americans receive a vaccination alert and when they get vaccinated.” An unnamed “senior White House administration official” was quoted as saying:4
“We’re going down the line of getting Americans very excited about a vaccine and losing anticipation, rather than having a bunch of vaccines in warehouses, but not that many people wanting to get it. You probably don’t hear a lot about vaccine rollouts on the airwaves August and September, but come November, you’ll be overwhelmed by it.”
It’s unclear when a vaccine will be available, but it could be as early as October or as late as January 2021. Advertising campaigns for the vaccine will be tailored to specific groups of people, depending on who is likely to benefit the most from the vaccine, according to administration officials. These details are expected to be teased out in ongoing clinical trials.
