TAMPA, Fla. — Local health experts are calling the U.K.’s approval of the COVID-19 vaccine “a light at the end of the tunnel.”
The Pfizer vaccine, approved in the U.K., has shown to be 94 percent effective at preventing COVID-19. Now medical experts say the U.S. may only be a week away from getting the same approval.
Once approved, the first doses will go to frontline healthcare workers, then to nursing home facilities. But USF associate professor of medicine Dr. Micheal Teng says it will likely be close to summer before most people can be vaccinated.
"For healthy adults, I think it's going to be several months before our turn comes to get the vaccine," said Teng.
A vaccine that couldn’t come fast enough as cases continue to rise across the country and health care workers urge people to keep social distancing through the holiday season.
"It's not going to be over for a while, but this is a light at the end of the tunnel," said Teng.