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FastestThings

Authorization Time

Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine

The shortest of these three federal clocks: 311 days from the February 4, 2020 emergency determination to an authorization effective December 11, 2020.

Also known as BNT162b2, Comirnaty EUA
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Authorization time

311days

Days from the HHS Secretary's section 564 determination, effective February 4, 2020, to this product's first emergency-use authorization. 2020 was a leap year. The sources print the dates. This row stores the subtraction.

OfficialFederal Register (opens source in a new tab)

Mechanism

Why it's so fast

This interval is short because the emergency determination was already in force, and the authorization has a printed effective date on that existing clock.

  1. The clock was already running

    On February 4, 2020 the HHS Secretary determined under section 564 that a public-health emergency existed. Later authorizations use that determination. The count does not start on a genome's first public day, because those dates disagree.

  2. One effective date

    The Federal Register says the Pfizer authorization is effective December 11, 2020. CDC's MMWR and FDA's archived table print the same day. Including the leap day, the subtraction is 311 days.

  3. What the number is not

    It is not how fast a medicine starts to work, and it is not a recommendation. The other rows on this list share the start and end later.

Seven days later on the same clock: the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

Provenance

Every measurement

Claimed, measured and official figures side by side, each with its source. The ranked figure is marked.

  1. 311daysRanked figure

    Days from the HHS Secretary's section 564 determination, effective February 4, 2020, to this product's first emergency-use authorization. 2020 was a leap year. The sources print the dates. This row stores the subtraction.

    February 4 is day 35 of 2020. December 11 is day 346. 346 minus 35 is 311 days. The sources print the dates, not the day count. This is not a dose and not days from a genome release.

    Official
    Federal Register (opens source in a new tab)

Reference

Specs

Clock start
4 February 2020
Authorization effective
11 December 2020
Interval
311 days

Context

Background

The clock starts on February 4, 2020, the day the Secretary of Health and Human Services's section 564 determination took effect. It ends on December 11, 2020, the day the Federal Register says the Pfizer authorization is effective. Counting the leap day, that is 311 days.

CDC's MMWR states that FDA issued the emergency-use authorization on December 11, 2020. FDA's archived authorization table lists the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as issued on 12/11/2020. The same February 4 determination is the start for the other rows. A later product on this list is a longer count, not a slower immune system.

Spot a wrong number?

Every report is read by a person, and corrections are dated on the page.