America’s Operation Warp Speed chief science advisor, Dr Moncef Slaoui, told the media on Sunday that a Pfizer vaccine will be rolled out to every state within 24 hours once it has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

The news comes as Americans face a grim Thanksgiving holiday this week, with a surging third wave of Covid-19 seeing governors in most states and health experts nationwide calling for people not to travel or have big family gatherings.

Despite new Covid-19 cases approaching almost 200,000 a day, warnings around travel have been largely ignored, with US airports reporting that over a million people had travelled on Friday.

Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they had submitted an emergency use authorisation application to the FDA for the use of its vaccine on Friday 20 November.

The announcement says they “have already initiated rolling submissions across the globe, including in Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan and the UK.”  

They also say they expect to produce up to 50 million doses of the vaccine this year and over a billion in 2021.

On Saturday, the day after the announcement, the USA recorded over 12 million infections, including that of Donald Trump Jr, and close to 26o,ooo deaths. 

The son of Rudy Giuliani, who is spearheading Trump’s legal team that’s attempting to overturn the Biden election win, has also tested positive.

The Covid Tracking Project data shows that on Saturday, across America, 83,227 people were in hospital with the virus. 

Also on Saturday, Trump received much media attention for attending a virtual G20 summit from the White House, where he is said to have pushed for the speedy development of a vaccine. He reportedly did not participate in a side conference on the pandemic response, opting instead to play golf. 

Trump continued to tweet about the “rigged” election outcome and his “win”, ignoring almost three weeks of daily coronavirus case increases of 100,000 and up. 

Trump is yet to say much about the current surge in Covid-19 in the country. He remains focussed on trying to overturn the election outcome and still refuses to concede defeat, despite there being no evidence to prove electoral fraud or compromised ballots.

It’s all about the signatures on the envelopes. Why are the Democrats fighting so hard to hide them. We will find massive numbers of fraudulent ballots. The signatures won’t match. Fight hard Republicans. Don’t let them destroy the evidence! https://t.co/qN2jHGeWEN

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2020

Most Americans welcomed Dr Moncef Slaoui’s announcement on Sunday that “hopefully the first people will be immunised across the United States” by 11 or 12 December 2020. 

Slaoui also said the plan was to vaccinate some 20 million Americans in December, following the approval of the vaccine. 

Pfizer and BioNTech have data on some 19,000 people who are participating in the vaccine trial study. The participants were followed over a period of around two months. 

The pharmaceutical companies say that “analysis of the data shows the vaccine candidate was effective in helping to prevent Covid-19 with an overall favourable safety profile”.

Biotech company Moderna is also expected to submit their vaccine to the FDA for emergency use authorisation. 

Moderna last week announced that their vaccine can be stored at 25 degrees Fahrenheit or -4 degrees Celsius, temperatures that can be safely maintained by a regular domestic refrigerator.

Meanwhile, Twitter has confirmed that it will migrate the @POTUS account from Donald Trump to president-elect Joe Biden on inauguration day, January 20, 2021, whether Trump concedes or not. It will also hand over a number of other official accounts, including @whitehouse and @FLOTUS. 

Many political pundits and American media houses have also begun reinforcing the point that concession is a tradition – not a legal requirement.

Twitter has since the election been marking Trump’s tweets with notifications indicating that his claims about election fraud are disputed.

President-elect Biden, who turned 78 on Friday, will be the oldest president in American history. There appeared to be no birthday celebrations – just a normal working day which included a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. 

Biden has been asking Americans to heed the advice of health experts and limit exposure to the virus by wearing a mask and keeping gatherings small.

The Biden transition team is pushing for a quick stimulus package that could come into effect in January 2021 to combat deteriorating economic conditions and ameliorate the financial hardships Americans are suffering under the pandemic. DM

An Wentzel is Night Editor, specialist reporter for Daily Maverick, she went to the USA to visit family as the pandemic struck and is currently marooned in the land of the ‘free’.