Jacksonville, Fla. — In early December, a panel of scientific advisers met to discuss early guidelines for who should receive the newly approved Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine first. Now, more than 96 million Americans (29.26%) have received at least one dose of the three COVID-19 vaccines available.
Providers are now administering roughly 2.77 million doses per day on average, according to a report.
One of those Americans is Ms. Elsa, who today received the 100,000th dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Jacksonville’s Regency Mall site, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM).
Vaccine development has historically been a long, complicated process, taking about 10-15 years on average to accomplish. Prior to the COVID-19 vaccine, the fastest a vaccine ever developed was the mumps vaccine in 1967, which took 4 years, according to the CDC.
In an interview with NPR earlier this year, Epidemiologist Rene Najera said that while the science behind the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna may seem like an overnight success, the technology is not new--which explains how medical researchers and scientists powered the two fastest vaccine trials in the history of science.
Researchers are currently testing 82 vaccines in clinical trials on humans, and 23 have reached the final stages of testing.
Additional resources to learn more:
- CDC article: Understanding mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines
- CDC Advisers Agree With FDA: COVID-19 Vaccine Is OK For Public Use