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The fight against the virus that causes COVID-19 seems to be turning a corner, as drug companies begin to present vaccines to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval under itsdzٴdzDZ.
“The world is watching as the FDA evaluates and considers these vaccines,” says Adam RStracher, MD, Chief Medical Officer at ĢƵ. “As a medical center that served as a site forModerna’s phase 3 clinical trial, we’re especially mindful of how much this means to the entire ĢƵ community, from our researchers and providers, to our patients.”
The vaccines will be available to general public in early 2021, sothere is no need to contact your provider to schedule an appointment at this time. We also created this Covid-19 Vaccine guide to help keep the community informed about our role in its ongoing distribution.
We also encourage you to make sure you have an activeWeill Cornell Connectaccount, and to make sure you’ve been on top of your routine medical care. That way, when we are ready to widely distribute a COVID-19 vaccine, you’ll find out about it as soon as possible, and your health, insurance, and account information will be up to date.
Information about the vaccine is developing, and we will update you as it becomes available. Here are some answers to initial questions about the vaccine.
Vaccines. They do this by allowing a person to develop immunity to a disease,as ifthey’d been exposed to the disease itself. Vaccines contain a weakened or killed version of the disease agent (virus or bacteria), or part of the disease agent, to prepare the immune system to produce antibodies that fight the disease.
Even after a patient is given a vaccine, its safety is tracked and recorded by a, co-sponsored by the FDA and CDC.
The goal of—agovernment-driven effortto accelerate the development, manufacturing, andof COVID-19safevaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics—is to begin administering a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020, and the beginning of 2021.
According tofrom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the first people to receive the COVID-19 vaccine will be healthcare providers and residents of long-term care facilities.
As vaccines begin to be approved, supply will continually be distributed. After healthcare providers and long-term care facility patients receive the first doses of the vaccine, additional doses are expected to become more widely available.
Since only non-pregnant adults participated in the early clinical trials for various COVID-19 vaccines, it may not be recommended for children at first. However, clinical trials continue to expand their recruitment into more populations and the groups recommended to receive the vaccines could growin the near future.
All vaccines—including those the FDA is considering as part of Operation Warp Speed—go through a rigorous process of development and testing. That rigor is not compromised as part of the effort, only its pace.
As the CDC explains, there areof vaccine development:
Clinical development itself is a three-phase process. In Phase I, small groups of people receive the trial vaccine. Phase II expands the clinical study by giving the vaccine to people who have characteristicssimilar tothose for whom the new vaccine is intended. In Phase III the vaccine is given to thousands ofpeople, andis tested for efficacy and safety.
Herd immunity, also called, occurs when a sufficient proportion of a population is immune to an infectious disease (through vaccination and/or prior illness) to make its spread from person to person unlikely.Itcan help protect those who are noteligibleto be vaccinated, such as newborns, or those with chronic illnesses.
In addition to washing your hands, wearing a mask, and keeping six feet between yourself and people who don’t live in your household, you should monitor yourself carefullyforsymptomsif you think you may have been exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19.’sinformation about gettingtestedfor COVID-19.
We also encourage you to make sure you have an activeWeill Cornell Connectaccount, and to make sure you’ve been on top of your routine medical care. That way, when WCM is ready to widely distribute a COVID-19 vaccine, you’ll find out about it as soon as possible, and your health, insurance, and account information will be up to date.