By Katie Shepherd, Erin Cunningham, Adam Taylor, Brittany Shammas and Paulina VillegasDec. 8, 2020 at 8:13 a.m. EST
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The United States will not be able to buy more doses of coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, until late June or July, sources said, after other countries bought most of the supply. Pfizer officials recommended that Operation Warp Speed buy 200 million doses, but the Trump administration only purchased 100 million, leading to concerns that the U.S. will not be able to stick to its aggressive vaccination timeline.
The news came shortly before Britain announced it had begun administering the Pfizer vaccine, becoming the first Western country to begin a mass effort to inoculate people against the coronavirus.Here are some significant developments:
- Ninety-year-old Margaret Keenan was the first U.K. recipient of the vaccine. “My advice to anyone offered the vaccine is to take it — if I can have it at 90, then you can have it too,” she said.
- Anthony S. Fauci, the leading infectious-disease expert, warned that an extended Christmas holiday period could lead to a more dramatic transmission spike than Thanksgiving.
- Police with guns drawn raided the Florida home of Rebekah Jones, the data scientist who said she was fired by the state health department for refusing requests she felt were unethical.
- Legislators in Arizona and Michigan have been sent home to quarantine amid fears that President Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani may have exposed them to the virus during visits last week.
- By January, nearly 12 million renters will owe more than $5,000 on average in unpaid rent and utilities after losing their jobs during the pandemic.
- The governor of São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state, has vowed to make the vaccine mandatory despite objections from President Jair Bolsonaro.
