THE DEADLIEST DAY SO far of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. came just one day ahead of a Food and Drug Administration committee meeting to review an emergency use authorization application for a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
More than 3,100 deaths were recorded on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. death toll stands at nearly 290,000.
The seven-day average of daily cases and hospitalizations are also at record highs, according to The Covid Tracking Project. The country has reported an average of nearly 210,000 new cases per day over the past week, while more than 106,000 COVID-19 patients are currently hospitalized.
The records come as the FDA’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee kicked off its meeting on the Pfizer vaccine on Thursday. The committee will issue a recommendation as to whether the agency should grant the vaccine an emergency use authorization.
Later Thursday, the committee of independent scientific and public health experts will vote on the question: “Based on the totality of scientific evidence available, do the benefits of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine outweigh its risks for use in individuals 16 years of age and older?”