Tag Archives: Operation Warp Speed

New York governor asks Pfizer to directly sell COVID-19 vaccine doses

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asked Pfizer Inc Chief Executive Albert Bourla on Monday if the state could buy COVID-19 vaccine doses directly from the U.S. drugmaker.

Pfizer, however, told Reuters that such a proposal would first require approval by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“With hospitalizations and deaths increasing across the country this winter, we are in a footrace with the virus, and we will lose unless we dramatically increase the number of doses getting to New Yorkers,” Cuomo said in a letter to Pfizer’s CEO.

Cuomo said he was appealing to Pfizer directly as the company was “not bound by commitments” that Moderna Inc made as part of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government’s program to distribute COVID-19 vaccines.

No state has purchased vaccines directly from the producer. Cuomo’s letter did not state how many doses he was seeking or how he would pay for it.

Pfizer said it was open to collaborating with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in a way that would ensure quick vaccine distribution to as many Americans as possible.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Howard Goller)

J&J COVID-19 vaccine could be available in Europe in April: source

By Francesco Guarascio

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson could deliver the first doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to Europe in April, an EU official told Reuters on Wednesday after a top lawmaker said the U.S. healthcare company was likely to seek EU regulatory approval in February.

Clinical data on the vaccine has been assessed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) since Dec. 1 under a rolling review to speed up possible approval.

A senior EU official, who is involved in negotiations with vaccine makers and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the J&J shot could be available from April 1 in Europe.

Earlier on Wednesday, an EU lawmaker said J&J could seek EU approval for its one-shot vaccine in February.

“EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides announced during our (EU lawmakers) group meeting this morning that the vaccine manufacturer Johnson & Johnson is likely to submit an application for approval to the EU for their vaccine in February,” said Peter Liese, who speaks on health matters for the EU’s center-right group, the assembly’s largest.

Following Liese’s comments, a spokesman for Kyriakides said: “We cannot give any precise indications regarding an application for conditional marketing authorization, but we of course hope that an application could be submitted in the coming weeks.”

EMA, in a statement, said “a date for submission of a marketing authorization application has not yet been confirmed.”

J&J had no immediate comment on the timeline described by the EU source and the lawmaker, which appeared to be slightly behind expectations for the vaccine in the United States.

J&J Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Paul Stoffels told Reuters the drugmaker expects to have clear data on how effective its vaccine is by the end of this month or early February and was on track for a U.S. rollout in March.

The EU drugs regulator had said in December it expected the J&J to apply in the first quarter of this year.

It took EMA 20 days to approve the vaccine developed by BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc, and just over a month to authorize the Moderna Inc shot after their applications were submitted in early December. The two vaccines are so far the only ones approved in the EU, while AstraZeneca submitted its application on Tuesday.

“If all goes well, we will already have the fourth corona vaccine available in a few weeks,” Liese added.

The EU has booked 200 million doses of the J&J vaccine and has an option to order another 200 million shots. The J&J vaccine is administered as a single shot, while those from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech require two doses three or four weeks apart for full protection.

The EU has invested about 360 million euros ($438 million) to secure the J&J vaccine with a down payment that would need to be complemented with payments by EU governments willing to buy the vaccine after approval.

The U.S. government secured 100 million doses from the company for $1 billion in an August agreement, with an option to buy an additional 200 million doses.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Additional reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Jason Neely, Louise Heavens and Bill Berkrot)

U.S. counter-intelligence chief worried about China, Russia threats to vaccine supply chain

By Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. counter-intelligence chief said on Tuesday he was worried about threats from China and Russia to disrupt the coronavirus vaccine supply chain in the United States.

William Evanina, director of the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center, told an online Washington Post event that U.S. adversaries were trying to interfere with Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government operation distributing the vaccines.

“Our adversaries are trying to disrupt that supply chain,” he said. Asked which adversaries he was particularly concerned about, he replied, “I would say China and Russia right now.”

The Chinese and Russian embassies did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Evanina’s assertion. Russia and China have denied U.S. accusations that hackers linked to both governments tried to steal data from vaccine manufacturers.

U.S. states are scrambling to accelerate inoculations as infections and deaths surge – COVID-19 has claimed on average about 3,200 lives nationwide every day over the past week.

Since the pandemic began more than 10 months ago nearly 375,000 people in the country have died, according to a Reuters count.

Evanina said that his agency was working with the U.S. Army and the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure the safe “transportation” of the vaccines “from the manufacturing site to the end-user inoculation.”

Vaccines available are made by Pfizer and BioNTech and Moderna. Nearly 9 million Americans have received the first of two doses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than one-third of the 25 million doses distributed by the federal government.

Public health experts have said no U.S. state has so far come close to using up its federal vaccine allotments, a much slower-than-expected roll-out blamed in part on rigid rules sharply limiting who can be inoculated.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Grant McCool)

Pfizer, U.S. strike 100 million COVID-19 vaccine deal with 70 million due by June

By Ankur Banerjee and Vishwadha Chander

(Reuters) – The U.S. government will pay Pfizer Inc nearly $2 billion for 100 million additional doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to bolster its supply as the country grapples with a nationwide spike in infections.

Under the new agreement, Pfizer will deliver at least 70 million doses by June 30 and the rest no later than July 31, the company said on Wednesday, bringing the total number of doses to 200 million for a total price of about $4 billion.

The purchase price amounts to $19.50 per shot and is slightly higher than the $18.90 per dose that Reuters has reported the European Union has agreed to pay. The shot has been authorized for use in EU and the United States.

The U.S. deal comes after growing concern that the government had not done enough to secure doses of one of the two authorized vaccines, made more pressing amid a COVID-19 surge that has left hospitals struggling to find beds for the sick.

Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine, developed with German partner BioNTech, is being rolled out across the United States after the shot won emergency use authorization earlier this month. The country has also authorized a vaccine from Moderna Inc.

Pfizer and the government have said that they had been negotiating the terms of the agreement, with the company indicating it was trying to work out how to deliver the doses in the second quarter.

Pfizer and BioNTech have said they expect to produce 1.3 billion doses in 2021, but executives at the German biotech have said they were trying to boost manufacturing. Governments around the world are scrambling to get enough supplies of the vaccine to tame the pandemic that has killed about 1.7 million people globally and crushed economies.

“This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement.

“Securing more doses from Pfizer and BioNTech for delivery in the second quarter of 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio.”

Pfizer said last week it may need the U.S. government to help it secure some components needed to make the vaccine. While the company halved its 2020 production target due to manufacturing issues, it said last week its manufacturing is running smoothly now.

The government also has the option to acquire up to an additional 400 million doses of the vaccine.

More than 600,000 Americans have received their first COVID-19 vaccine doses as of Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The first wave of shots have so far gone to healthcare workers and nursing home residents, as well as some top government officials. Americans in “essential” jobs and those over 75 will likely start to receive vaccines in January while general population vaccinations will start in a few months.

(Reporting by Ankur Banerjee and Vishwadha Chander in Bengaluru; Editing by Caroline Humer and Sriraj Kalluvila)

Pence gets COVID shot on TV as U.S. about to approve second vaccine

By Jeff Mason and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence received his COVID-19 vaccine live on television on Friday, seeking to shore up public support for vaccinations as U.S. regulators were on the cusp of approving a second vaccine for emergency use.

Pence said he “didn’t feel a thing” after he, his wife Karen Pence and Surgeon General Jerome Adams each rolled up their sleeves and took injections from white-coated medical staff, becoming the highest-profile recipients to receive the vaccine publicly.

After U.S. deaths from the coronavirus topped 3,000 for a third straight day, Pence called the vaccinations a sign of hope, with 20 million doses expected to be distributed nationwide before the end of December and hundreds of millions more going out in the first half of 2021.

“I also believe that history will record that this week was the beginning of the end of the coronavirus pandemic, but with cases rising across the country, hospitalizations rising across the country, we have a ways to go,” said Pence, leader of the White House coronavirus task force.

U.S. hospitalizations have set records on each of the past 20 days, approaching 114,000 on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally.

The United States reported a record 239,903 new cases on Thursday, when the U.S. death toll surpassed 311,000.

The situation was especially dire in California, with more than 50,000 new cases each of the past two days and many hospitals reporting their intensive care units are at or near capacity. That has triggered a renewal of sweeping stay-at-home orders across much of the state.

“We expect to have more dead bodies than we have spaces for them,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told a briefing on Thursday.

The Pences and Adams were injected with the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE, which was approved last week. A second vaccine, from Moderna Inc, was expected to win regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, Pence said.

Those vaccines require two doses, given three or four weeks apart, while others under development may require only a single dose. All have been developed with unprecedented speed in less than a year, thanks to technological advances and the urgency of the global pandemic.

Beyond the logistical challenge of the most ambitious vaccination campaign in decades, health officials must convince a skeptical public they are safe and effective. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 61% of Americans were open to getting vaccinated.

Pence and Adams being vaccinated publicly “is symbolic to tell the rest of the country the time is now to step to the plate, and when your time comes, to get vaccinated,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

Frontline healthcare workers, first responders and nursing home residents have been given priority, but a parade of high-profile jabs could soon follow. Fauci, who still sees patients, has said he might receive the vaccine within days.

Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have volunteered for public inoculations, and Joe Biden will get his next week, his aides said.

President Donald Trump has encouraged people to get vaccinated and championed his administration’s Operation Warp Speed program to promote the development and distribution of vaccines.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Susan Heavey, Idrees Ali and Anurag |Maan; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Gareth Jones, Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler)

Vaccinations under way, U.S. turns to educating skeptics, economic aid

(Reuters) – The United States extended its rollout of the first authorized COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, inoculating healthcare workers with an eye toward convincing skeptical Americans to get their shots and contain a pandemic that has killed more than 300,000 people.

The first Americans outside clinical trials started receiving the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE on Monday, three days after it won U.S. emergency-use authorization.

By day’s end, vaccine shipments had made it to nearly all of the 145 U.S. distribution sites pre-selected to receive the initial batch of doses, with a number of major hospital systems launching immunizations immediately.

The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses three weeks apart, as does the Moderna vaccine that could also receive emergency-use authorization this week.

In one of many made-for-TV injections, New York City intensive care nurse Sandra Lindsay received the first shot in the arm, saying “healing is coming” and that, “I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe.”

But just as large numbers of Americans have called the pandemic a hoax and rejected public health guidelines to wear face masks and avoid crowds, only 61% of respondents in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said they were open to getting vaccinated.

“The communication of public health is the No. 1 issue,” Dr. Rob Davidson, an emergency room physician in Michigan and director of the Committee to Protect Medicare, told MSNBC television on Tuesday.

“We’re really hopeful in this next phase that we can all come together with one voice to convince people this is important,” Davidson said.

COVID-19 has killed 301,085 people in the United States and infected 16.5 million, overwhelming the healthcare system with a record 110,163 patients hospitalized as of Monday, according to a Reuters tally of official data.

The pandemic has also inflicted economic pain as states and localities imposed stay-at-home orders and closed businesses, putting millions out of work.

The U.S. Congress on Monday inched toward passing the first COVID-19 relief bill since April, possibly extending aid to the unemployed, small businesses, and vaccine distribution. The COVID-19 aid could be attached to a critical spending measure that must be passed by Friday to avoid a federal government shutdown.

The process of shipping the first 2.9 million doses of vaccine began on Sunday, 11 months after the United States documented its first case of COVID-19.

Moncef Slaoui, top adviser to the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, has said the plan is to have about 40 million vaccine doses from Pfizer and Moderna – enough for 20 million people – distributed by year’s end.

It will take months before vaccines become widely available to the public at large.

“This is the most difficult vaccine rollout in history,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Fox News on Monday.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

New York nurse given COVID-19 vaccine as U.S. rollout begins

By Jonathan Allen and Gabriella Borter

NEW YORK (Reuters) -An intensive care unit nurse became the first person in New York state to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, marking a pivotal turn in the U.S. effort to control the deadly virus.

Sandra Lindsay, who has treated some of the sickest COVID-19 patients for months, was given the vaccine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in the New York City borough of Queens, an early epicenter of the country’s COVID-19 outbreak, receiving applause on a livestream with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

“It didn’t feel any different from taking any other vaccine,” Lindsay said. “I feel hopeful today, relieved. I feel like healing is coming. I hope this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in our history. I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe.”

Minutes after Lindsay received the injection, President Donald Trump sent a tweet: “First Vaccine Administered. Congratulations USA! Congratulations WORLD!”

Northwell Health, the largest health system in New York state, operates some of the select hospitals in the United States that were administering the country’s first inoculations of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine outside trials on Monday.

The vaccine, developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, won emergency-use approval from federal regulators on Friday after it was found to be 95% effective in preventing illness in a large clinical trial.

The first 2.9 million doses began to be shipped to distribution centers around the country on Sunday, just 11 months after the United States documented its first COVID-19 infections.

As of Monday, the United States had registered more than 16 million cases and nearly 300,000 deaths from the virus.

Health officials in Texas, Utah, South Dakota, Ohio and Minnesota said they also anticipated the first doses of the vaccine would be received at select hospitals on Monday and be administered right away.

LOGISTICAL CHALLENGE

The first U.S. shipments of coronavirus vaccine departed from Pfizer’s facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Sunday, packed into trucks with dry-ice to maintain the necessary sub-Arctic temperatures, and then were transported to UPS and FedEx planes waiting at air fields in Lansing and Grand Rapids, kicking off a national immunization endeavor of unprecedented complexity.

The jets delivered the shipments to UPS and FedEx cargo hubs in Louisville and Memphis, from where they were loaded onto planes and trucks to be distributed to the first 145 of 636 vaccine-staging areas across the country. Second and third waves of vaccine shipments were due to go out to the remaining sites on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“This is the most difficult vaccine rollout in history. There will be hiccups undoubtedly but we’ve done everything from a federal level and working with partners to make it go as smoothly as possible. Please be patient with us,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Fox News on Monday, adding that he would get the shot as soon as he could.

The logistical effort is further complicated by the need to transport and store the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at minus 70 Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit), requiring enormous quantities of dry ice or specialized ultra-cold freezers.

Workers clapped and whistled as the first boxes were loaded onto trucks at the Pfizer factory on Sunday.

“We know how much people are hurting,” UPS Healthcare President Wes Wheeler said on Sunday from the company’s command center in Louisville, Kentucky. “It’s not lost on us at all how important this is.”

MORE DOSES ON THE WAY

More than 100 million people, or about 30% of the U.S. population, could be immunized by the end of March, Moncef Slaoui, the chief advisor to the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed coronavirus vaccine initiative, said in an interview on Sunday.

Healthcare workers and elderly residents of long-term care homes will be first in line to get the inoculations of a two-dose regimen given about three weeks apart. That would still leave the country far short of the herd immunity that would halt virus transmission, so health officials have warned that masks and social distancing will be needed for months to control the currently rampaging outbreak. Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla told CNN in an interview on Monday that most of the 50 million vaccine doses the company will provide this year have been manufactured, adding that it plans on producing 1.3 billion doses next year. Approximately half will be allocated to the United States, he said. But Bourla said Pfizer is “working very diligently” to increase the amount of doses available because demand is very high. At the same time, he said, the company has not reached an agreement with the U.S. government on when to provide an additional 100 million doses next year. “We can provide them the additional 100 million doses, but right now most of that we can provide in the third quarter,” Bourla said. “The U.S. government wants them in the second quarter so are working very collaboratively with them to make sure that we can find ways to produce more or allocate the doses in the second quarter.” Slaoui said the United States hopes to have about 40 million vaccine doses – enough for 20 million people – distributed by the end of this month. That would include vaccines from both Pfizer and Moderna Inc. An outside U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel is scheduled to consider the Moderna vaccine on Thursday, with emergency use expected to be granted shortly after. On Friday, Moderna announced it had struck a deal with the U.S. government to deliver 100 million additional doses in the second quarter.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen, Gabriella Borter, Lisa Lambert, Lisa Baertlein and Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Paul Simao)

U.S. COVID deaths smash daily record amid pleas to trim back Christmas

By Susan Heavey and Maria Caspani

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The daily U.S. death toll from COVID-19 has surpassed 3,000 for the first time, prompting pleas for Americans to scale back Christmas plans even with vaccines on the cusp of winning regulatory approval.

COVID-19 deaths reached 3,253 on Wednesday, pushing up the U.S. total since the start of the pandemic to 289,740. A record 106,219 people were hospitalized with the highly infectious respiratory disease.

Healthcare professionals and support staff, exhausted by demands of the pandemic, have been watching patients die alone as millions of Americans refuse to follow medical advice to wear masks and avoid crowds to contain the spread.

Nursing home residents and staff have also felt the burden.

“This is a pandemic that no one has ever experienced in our lifetimes,” Stephen Hanse, president of the New York State Health Facilities Association and the New York State Center for Assisted Living, told Reuters on Thursday.

The one-day death toll exceeded the number of lives lost from the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, underscoring the human toll and the call for Americans to redouble efforts.

“No Christmas parties. There is not a safe Christmas party in this country right now,” Dr. Michael Osterholm told CNN on Thursday.

“It won’t end after that but that is the period right now where we could have a surge upon a surge upon a surge,” Osterholm said.

Potentially helping to rein in the outbreak, a vaccine could start reaching healthcare workers, first responders and nursing home residents within days in what Hanse called “light at the end of the tunnel.”

A panel of independent medical experts was due to decide on Thursday whether to recommend to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration a vaccine from Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE for emergency use authorization.

A vote was expected some time after 3:10 p.m. EST (2010 GMT).

FDA consent could come as early as Friday or Saturday, followed by the first U.S. injections on Sunday or Monday, Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine development program, told Fox News.

A second vaccine developed by Moderna is a week behind.

Biden, who succeeds President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, has set a goal of vaccinating 100 million people within the first 100 days of his administration.

In the meantime, intensive care units at hundreds of hospitals across the country were at or near capacity, data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed.

Ten mostly rural counties in California reported having no ICU beds on Wednesday, according to state health figures analyzed by Reuters.

Besides the human cost, the pandemic has forced millions out of work as state and local officials impose restrictions on social and economic life to contain the outbreak.

Congress, meanwhile, has struggled to end a months-long stalemate over economic assistance.

Disagreements remain over business liability protections demanded by Republicans and aid to state and local governments sought by Democrats before a final deal is reached on pandemic assistance.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Maria Caspani, Sharon Bernstein and Lisa Shumaker; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Steve Orlofsky and Tom Brown)

Hackers targeting groups involved in COVID-19 vaccine distribution, IBM warns

By Raphael Satter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – IBM is sounding the alarm over hackers targeting companies critical to the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, a sign that digital spies are turning their attention to the complex logistical work involved in inoculating the world’s population against the novel coronavirus.

The information technology company said in a blog post published on Thursday that it had uncovered “a global phishing campaign” focused on organizations associated with the COVID-19 vaccine “cold chain” – the process needed to keep vaccine doses at extremely cold temperatures as they travel from manufacturers to people’s arms.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency reposted the report, warning members of Operation Warp Speed – the U.S. government’s national vaccine mission – to be on the lookout.

Understanding how to build a secure cold chain is fundamental to distributing vaccines developed by the likes of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech because the shots need to be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) or below to avoid spoiling.

IBM’s cybersecurity unit said it had detected an advanced group of hackers working to gather information about different aspects of the cold chain, using meticulously crafted booby-trapped emails sent in the name of an executive with Haier Biomedical, a Chinese cold chain provider that specializes in vaccine transport and biological sample storage.

The hackers went through “an exceptional amount of effort,” said IBM analyst Claire Zaboeva, who helped draft the report. Hackers researched the correct make, model, and pricing of various Haier refrigeration units, Zaboeva said.

“Whoever put together this campaign was intimately aware of whatever products were involved in the supply chain to deliver a vaccine for a global pandemic,” she said.

Messages sent to the email addresses used by the hackers were not returned.

IBM said the bogus Haier emails were sent to around 10 different organizations but only identified one target by name: the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union, which handles tax and customs issues across the EU and has helped set rules on the import of vaccines.

In a statement, the European Commission said it was aware that it had been targeted by a hacking campaign.

“We have taken the necessary steps to mitigate the attack and are closely following and analyzing the situation,” the statement said.

IBM said other targets included companies involved in the manufacture of solar panels, which are used to power vaccine refrigerators in warm countries, and petrochemical products that could be used to derive dry ice.

Who is behind the vaccine supply chain espionage campaign is not clear.

Reuters has previously documented how hackers linked to Iran, Vietnam, North Korea, South Korea, China, and Russia have on separate occasions been accused by cybersecurity experts or government officials of trying to steal information about the virus and its potential treatments.

IBM’s Zaboeva said there was no shortage of potential suspects. Figuring out how to swiftly distribute an economy-saving vaccine “should be topping the lists of nation states across the world,” she said.

(Reporting by Raphael Satter; editing by Grant McCool and Rosalba O’Brien)

U.S. pandemic death toll mounts as danger season approaches

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. deaths from the coronavirus pandemic have surged past 2,000 for two days in a row as the most dangerous season of the year approached, taxing an overwhelmed healthcare system with U.S. political leadership in disarray.

The toll from COVID-19 reached its second-highest level ever on Wednesday with 2,811 lives lost, according to a Reuters tally of official data, one short of the record from April 15.

Nearly 200,000 new U.S. cases were reported on Wednesday, with record hospitalizations approaching 100,000 patients.

The sobering data came as the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday warned that December, January and February were likely to be “the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that the United States could start losing around 3,000 people – roughly the number that died in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – each day over the next two months.

“The mortality concerns are real and I do think unfortunately before we see February, we could be close to 450,000 Americans that have died from this virus,” Redfield said. The U.S. death toll since the start of the pandemic stands at around 273,000.

Hospitals are filling up with COVID-19 patients, reducing care for people needing treatment for other ailments. Redfield said 90% of U.S. hospitals were in areas designated as coronavirus “hot zones.”

Rural and suburban hospitals were particularly affected, threatening their economic viability, Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told MSNBC on Thursday.

“There’s no end in sight because there’s so much community spread,” Adalja said, warning that the pandemic could force hospital closures.

Still, rapid vaccine development, aided by the Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” program, offered a ray of hope.

Britain on Wednesday gave emergency approval to Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine, a sign that U.S. regulators may soon follow suit and allow inoculations within weeks.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Daniel Trotta; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Bernadette Baum)