Coronavirus Watch: Vaccinations may begin 'Monday, Tuesday' official says

The Food and Drug Administration plans to grant emergency use authorization to Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine, a top U.S. health official said Friday.

"We could be seeing people getting vaccinated Monday, Tuesday of next week," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told ABC's "Good Morning America."

The news comes a day after an independent committee voted Thursday to recommend authorization.

Now what? We're still waiting on the official FDA authorization. If that happens, we'll send out a newsletter to let you know. Then one last important meeting will take place Sunday, when an advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meets to make a final recommendation on who should get the vaccine first.

"We’re looking at 20 million Americans being vaccinated just in the next coming weeks, up to 50 million total by the end of January, and we believe we could have 100 million actual vaccinations in arm by the end of February," Azar said.

It's Friday, and this is the Coronavirus Watch from the Paste BN Network. Here's more news that you need to know:

• What's going on with coronavirus relief? 12 million Americans are set to lose their unemployment benefits the day after Christmas. Eviction moratoriums for renters and protections for student borrowers are also set to expire, as well as a federal program for paid family leave. And congressional negotiations are still at an impasse.
• There's been a delay in the vaccine being developed by Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline. The companies said that study results found older patients failed to demonstrate a sufficient immune response. 
• As many as 300,000 COVID-19 cases across the U.S. and world can be traced back to a two-day conference in Boston held in February, a study published Thursday suggests.  
• Dr. Anthony Fauci and frontline medical workers were named TIME Magazine’s Guardians of the Year — an honor bestowed as America grapples with some of the darkest days of the pandemic yet.
• The speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives died of COVID-19, a medical examiner ruled Thursday.
• Every U.S. county has now had at least one COVID-19 case. An adult resident of Kalaupapa, Hawaii, became the first person to contract COVID-19 in Kalawao County, reportedly the last county in the U.S. without a case, according to the Hawaii Department of Health.
• Meanwhile, South Dakota on Thursday became the second state where 1 in every 10 people have tested positive, Johns Hopkins University data shows. North Dakota hit that mark on Thanksgiving. In Iowa, more than 1 in every 1,000 residents have died of COVID-19.

Today's numbers: The U.S. has reported over 15.6 million cases and over 292,000 deaths – several hundred more than the number of battlefield deaths in World War II, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Globally, there have been over 69.8 million cases and 1.5 million fatalities. See the numbers in your area here, and check out where cases are rising here.

What do you want to know about the vaccine? We're taking your vaccine questions through this online form, and we'll answer them here. You asked: How will the vaccine be shipped?

The vaccine is shipped in glass, five-dose vials for Pfizer and 10-dose vials for Moderna. The Pfizer vaccine must be stored at minus 94 degrees or below; Moderna's at minus 4 degrees. Because of the ultracold storage requirements of the Pfizer vaccine, it is being stored either at Pfizer production facilities or what are known as "freezer farms," storage sites filled with row upon row of ultracold freezers about the size of a large home refrigerator.

Pfizer will ship its vaccine using UPS and FedEx as its main distributors. Moderna's vaccine distribution is being coordinated by McKesson, the nation's largest medical supply distributor. Read more.

– Grace Hauck, Paste BN breaking news reporter, @grace_hauck