A panel of outside advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to endorse emergency use of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, paving the way for the agency to authorize the shot for a nation that has lost more than 285,000 lives to COVID-19.

The FDA is widely expected to authorize emergency use in days. Distribution and inoculations in the United States are expected to begin almost immediately thereafter.

The committee voted 17-4 that the known benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks of taking the shot for individuals 16 and older, with 1 member of the panel abstaining.

“This is a historic moment,” Eric Dickson, chief executive of UMass Memorial Health Care, who was not on the advisory panel, said after the vote. He called the vaccine from Pfizer and German partner BioNTech “the best solution to get us out of our current situation and help us save lives.”

Pfizer had asked that the two-dose vaccine be approved for use in people aged 16 to 85. Several advisory panel members discussed whether 16 and 17 year olds should be included in the recommendation. In the end, they voted on the question as put them by the FDA, which included 16 to 17 year olds./Reuters

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