By the looks of it, we are about to face one of the most aggressive vaccine campaigns ever created. According to Reuters,1 the U.S. government is planning to launch an “overwhelming” COVID-19 vaccine campaign come November, provided the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives one or more vaccine candidates the green light.
Considering former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb2 is now on Pfizer’s board of directors,3 and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is one of the lead candidates, jaded minds might assume the FDA isn’t going to put up any significant roadblocks.
According to Reuters, the COVID-19 vaccine campaign “will likely be compressed into a short period of time, around four to six weeks, to eliminate any lag between when Americans are alerted to the vaccine and then they can get vaccinated.” An unnamed “senior White House administration official” is quoted saying:4
“The fine line we are walking is getting the American people very excited about vaccines and missing expectations versus having a bunch of vaccines in the warehouse and not as many people want to get it. You may not hear a lot about promoting vaccines over the airwaves in August and September but you’ll be overwhelmed by it come November.”
It’s still unclear exactly when a vaccine will be available, but it could be as early as October, or as late as January 2021. According to the administration official, the advertising campaign for the vaccine will be tailored to specific subsets of the population, depending on the people the vaccine is likely to benefit the most. Such details are expected to be teased out during ongoing clinical trials.