Two COVID Vaccines Getting Closer To Distribution, NAH Wants To Be A Distribution Site

There are two COVID-19 vaccines that are almost completed with trials and will head to the FDA for approval soon. Pfizer and BioNTech announced Wednesday morning their vaccine is 95-percent effective and could be submitted to the FDA within days. A big question is what do the vaccines contain? Dr. John Mougin with Flagstaff Medical Center says companies are using “something called MRNA, which causes the body to produce a protein that’s expressed on the COVID-19 virus.” He says “the body then develops an immune response against that protein, so if you get exposed to it your body will hopefully keep the virus from taking hold and prevent infection.” Mougin says when the vaccine is ready, Northern Arizona Health Care has “applied to be a point of distribution for the vaccination and we are working on the logistics around being able to deliver and distribute the vaccination to our employees as well as other candidates for the vaccination.” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Wednesday “by the end of December we expect to have about 40-million doses of the two vaccines available for distribution, pending FDA authorization, which is enough to vaccinate about 20 million of our most vulnerable Americans.”