U.S. Plans For Rapid Vaccine Rollout As COVID-19 Surges To New Heights

WASHINGTON: U.S. officials on Tuesday unveiled plans to begin vaccinating millions of Americans against COVID-19 as early as mid-December, as coronavirus infections and hospitalizations in the United States soared once more to unprecedented heights.

With outgoing President Donald Trump’s coronavirus strategy relying heavily on a vaccine, the chief adviser of his administration’s Operation Warp Speed program said on Tuesday that 20 million people could be inoculated by the end of 2020, and that by the middle of 2021 most Americans will have access to highly effective vaccines.

“Within 24 hours, maybe at most 36 to 48 hours, from the approval, the vaccine can be in people’s arms,” Moncef Slaoui, a former GlaxoSmithKline executive, said at an event conducted by The Washington Post newspaper.

The highly contagious virus infected 4.36 million people in the United States in November alone, more than double the tally of new cases the previous month, as many Americans refused to…