Vaccine is being flown into position.
United Airlines has already begun flying Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine into position — including trips to and from locations in the U.S. and Europe — in anticipation of approval by the Food and Drug Administration and other regulators, according to a report.
The first charter flights are part of Pfizer’s efforts to move quickly once approvals are granted.
Pfizer has final vaccine assembly centers in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and in Puurs, Belgium, and runs distribution storage sites in Pleasant Prairie, Wis., and Karlsruhe, Germany, the paper said.
Pfizer declined to comment on the WSJ report.
The FAA said in a statement to the paper on Friday that it is supporting the “first mass air shipment of a vaccine,” and is working with other airlines on vaccine transportation.
Source wall street journal, new York post.
Pfizer vaccine is in motion..
One of the interesting points included is United’s request to carry more dry ice on its flights than is normally allowed. According to the reporting done by the Wall Street Journal, the FAA approved the airline to carry five times the normal amount of dry ice per flight. The 15,000 pounds of dry ice will be packed in Pfizer-developed boxes — about the size of a suitcase — that will keep the vaccine doses cold.
United won’t be the only airline or transportation company involved in vaccine distribution (be it from Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson). The Wall Street Journal article also talked about American Airlines’ trial flights from Miami to South America, which is part of a test of the efficacy of its vaccine thermal packaging and procedures.
As we head into December, we’ll likely hear more about how the airlines and companies like FedEx and UPS will assist with vaccine distribution. On Dec. 10, the FDA will meet to discuss Pfizer’s request to authorize the emergency use of its vaccine in the United States. Moderna is expected to make a similar request to the federal agency in early December as well. Depending on the outcome of those meetings, approval to roll out one or more vaccines could happen as early as mid-December.
Fauci warns of surging crises.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert said Sunday that the U.S. may see “surge upon a surge” of the coronavirus in the weeks after Thanksgiving, and he does not expect current recommendations around social distancing to be relaxed before Christmas.
Meanwhile, in a major reversal, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio said the nation’s largest school system will reopen to in-person learning and increase the number of days a week many children attend class. The announcement came just 11 days after the Democratic mayor said schools would shut down because of rising COVID-19 cases.
“We feel confident that we can keep schools safe,” he said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC’s “This Week” that the level of infection in the U.S. would not “all of a sudden turn around.”
Fauci said the arrival of vaccines offers a “light at the end of the tunnel.” This coming week, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to discuss a rollout of the vaccine, he said.
He added that President-elect Joe Biden should focus on distributing vaccines in an “efficient and equitable way.” Fauci also said he planned to push the new administration for a rigorous testing program.
Health care workers will likely be among the first to get the vaccine, with the first vaccinations happening before the end of December, followed by many more in January, February and March, he said.
“So if we can hang together as a country and do these kinds of things to blunt these surges until we get a substantial proportion of the population vaccinated, we can get through this,” Fauci said.
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2020/11/29/fauci-us-may-see-surge-upon-a-surge-of-virus-in-weeks-ahead/
Defeating two Republican incumbents, Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, will be no easy task for Mr. Ossoff and Mr. Warnock. Still, the competitiveness of the races, and the progressive focus on Georgia, underscores the political evolution occurring in the state.
Mr. Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. And though Georgia does not have a reputation now as a hotbed of liberalism, some organizers and strategists inside and outside Georgia contend that it is becoming increasingly receptive to left-leaning ideas.
There are two vaccines, made by Moderna and Pfizer, that are both seeking emergency approval in the US. Pfizer's treatment was approved for the British public on Wednesday.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to meet on 10 December to discuss approval for the Pfizer vaccine. They will meet again on 17 December to discuss Moderna's request.
On Monday, Vice-President Mike Pence told US governors in a conference call that rollout of the vaccine could begin "as soon as the week of December 14".
It comes as coronavirus cases continue to balloon across the US, with an average of over 150,000 new cases reported per day. The US has recorded a total of 13.6 million cases and some 270,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Source BBC
Both President Elect Biden and President Trump will be in Georgia ahead of runoff election.
President-elect Joe Biden and President Donald Trump will both visit Georgia on Monday, a day before voters in the state cast their ballots in dual contests that will determine which party controls the US Senate for the first two years of Biden’s presidency.
The runoff races between Democrat Jon Ossoff against incumbent Republican David Perdue and Democrat Raphael Warnock against incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler have gripped national attention in the weeks following the November 3 elections.
Democrats control 48 seats in the 100-member Senate and Republicans have 50. If either Loeffler or Perdue wins their races on Tuesday, Republicans will maintain control of the Senate
Source https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/4/biden-trump-converge-on-georgia-ahead-of-pivotal-us-senate-vote
Now that the necessary 38 states have ratified, Congress must eliminate the original deadline. A joint resolution was introduced in Congress currently to do just that. On 21 January, 2021, U.S. Senators Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Congressman Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) announced the bipartisan legislation, which reads simply:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That notwithstanding any time limit contained in House Joint Resolution 208, 92nd Congress, as agreed to in the Senate on March 22, 1972, the article of amendment proposed to the States in that joint resolution shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution whenever ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States.
This legislation, when passed, will eliminate one of the procedural barriers standing in the way of enshrining gender equality in the U.S. Constitution. You can take action to urge Congress to eliminate the deadline
U.S. Senators Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) announced Thursday that the first bipartisan legislation they will introduce for the 117th Congress is their joint resolution to remove the deadline to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment -- S.J.Res.1. Ratification of the ERA would expressly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in the U.S. Constitution. In the House of Representatives, the resolution is being introduced by Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Congressman Tom Reed (R-N.Y.).
Almost exactly one year ago, in January 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, which was first proposed in 1972. Congress has the authority under Article V of the Constitution to set and change deadlines for the ratification of constitutional amendments, and has done so on numerous occasions. In 1992, the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting immediate congressional pay raises, was successfully ratified after 203 years. That amendment was initially proposed as part of the original Bill of Rights in 1789.
Established in 1995,
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