AstraZeneca , Moderna and Pfizer Covid Vaccines

 AstraZeneca , Moderna and Pfizer all three giants have said they will seek regulatory clearance in order to offer their vaccines to million of people of all over the world . The drugmakers have moved at record speed, and the first shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines could be given in the coming weeks. The path for the AstraZeneca vaccine is less clear .

The FDA has emergency authority to issue temporary approvals of medical products to get them to the public more quickly during public health emergencies. Such authorizations require less data and can be done more rapidly than full approvals. Since February, the FDA has used this power to authorize hundreds of Coronavirus  tests and a few treatments. But it has authorized a vaccine that way only once in its history — in 2005, against anthrax — and that was under sharply different circumstances.

Some experts have expressed qualm about using that process for a coronavirus vaccine that would be given to hundreds of millions of people, but those criticisms have become stopped as the pandemic has raged, killing thousands of Americans a week. 

The vaccines could begin to be distributed as soon as mid-December to those in high-risk groups — an estimated 200 million people — who will receive priority, according to a framework devised by an advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Government officials said that if both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are authorized, they anticipate having enough doses for 20 million people by year’s end.