Vaccines

Arnold resident Carrie Rayfield Cabral participated in Pfizer's vaccine trial this fall. In this interview, she shares why she's convinced the trial spared her from serious illness, and what she hopes others take from her experience.

Mercy Health employees were among the first in the region to receive the newly approved coronavirus vaccine after the first shipments of the shots arrived in Missouri early Monday. The federal government is shipping 51,000 initial doses of the vaccine to the state’s health care workers this week, and millions more are expected to come in the next two months.

The federal Food and Drug Administration has approved the first coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in the United States. The federal government will begin shipping the vaccine to Missouri and other states within days. Public health officials have said a widely available vaccine will ultimately control the pandemic that has killed nearly 5,000 people across the state, overwhelmed hospitals and devastated businesses.

Missouri expects to receive the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine next week, state health officials said on Friday. The federal Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve a vaccine from drug developer Pfizer. Missouri officials have said the immunizations are the key to bringing an end to the pandemic that has killed nearly 5,000 Missourians and sickened hundreds of thousands more. The state will initially receive 51,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Those doses will be used to vaccinate workers at select health care facilities.

The state Department of Health and Senior Services plans to send 340,000 coronavirus vaccine doses to essential health workers by the end of this month, Director Randall Williams said Friday afternoon. The federal government’s Operation Warp Speed likely will ship the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to the health department in the next few weeks, Williams said.

In recent weeks, both Pfizer and Moderna announced that their COVID-19 vaccines are 95% effective. But does it mean everyone will have a vaccine by New Year’s Eve? Not quite, says Michael Kinch, associate vice chancellor at Washington University in St. Louis.

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine is the first to have data showing that it exceeded the minimum effectiveness threshold set by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use.

St. Louis University and Washington University are testing coronavirus vaccines through large-scale clinical trials. To determine if the vaccines are effective, researchers are looking for people who are likely to get sick.

A YouGov and St. Louis University poll asked 931 likely Missouri voters whether they would receive a coronavirus vaccine if it were free and approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Fifty-one percent of respondents said they “likely” or “positively” would get the vaccine, compared to 70% who would get a flu shot.

Missouri's state health director says a limited supply of vaccine could come as early as December, but supplies won't be available to the general public until spring at the earliest.