Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine will likely be administered Monday

UNITED STATES (ABC News/WOLO) – The Moderna vaccine will likely be administered to Americans for the first time on Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said this weekend.

The first cases containing the Moderna vaccine, which was authorized by the FDA on Friday, were seen Sunday morning being rolled out from a facility in Olive Branch, Mississippi, to be shipped to the FedEx hub in Memphis, Tennessee, for nationwide distribution.

The doses were packed into insulated coolers with specialized cold packs and a temperature monitor, according to pharmaceutical distribution company McKesson.

According to the Associated Press, the vaccine is very similar to one from Pfizer Inc. and Germany’s BioNTech that’s now being dispensed to millions of health care workers and nursing home residents as the biggest vaccination drive in U.S. history starts to ramp up.

The Food and Drug Administration reported that both vaccines require two doses several weeks apart; the second dose must be from the same company as the first.

This comes as Johns Hopkins University reports over 17 million COVID-19 cases in the United States and more than 317 thousand deaths related to the virus.