(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
The first wave of COVID-19 vaccines could be available to some frontline health care workers and nursing home residents in central Illinois in just a matter of days or weeks.
A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel gave emergency use authorization to Pfizer s COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday evening. The expert panel found the benefits of using the vaccine in populations ages 16 and older outweighed the risks. Clinical trials on children are still upcoming.
NPR reports the FDA is expected to move quickly on final approval.
Dr. Douglas Kasper, the section head of Infectious Disease at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria and OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, said this vaccine works differently from most others.