‘Healing Is Coming’: U.S. Starts Vaccinating People Against COVID-19

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Sandra Lindsay (left) a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, is inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by Dr. Michelle Chester on Monday in the Queens borough of New York.

Mark Lennihan/Pool/AP

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Mark Lennihan/Pool/AP

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Pharmacists Richard Emery, (left) and Karen Nolan, wheel a box containing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine next to a storage freezer as it arrives at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I, on Monday.

David Goldman/AP

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David Goldman/AP

Pharmacists Richard Emery, (left) and Karen Nolan, wheel a box containing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine next to a storage freezer as it arrives at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I, on Monday.

David Goldman/AP

«About 145 sites are expecting to receive a vaccine shipment today, NPR’s Allison Aubrey reports, adding that another 425 sites will get their doses on Tuesday.

Other vaccines are in the works, bolstering hopes of an eventual return to normal. But experts warn that it will take time to reverse a pandemic that is soaring to new heights in the U.S. and other countries.

States are using tiered systems to determine who gets the first doses in what is a very limited number of vaccines. They must also adapt to shifting plans from Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine program.

«We were anticipating about a half a million vaccines and then we were informed by the federal government that it was going to be more like 80,000, Whitmer says. «And so we as states are trying to be nimble and build up the apparatus to administer these vaccines.

It will be at least a couple months, the governor said, before «we will really start to see increased availability for the general public.