tonight, on the frontlines of history. a dose of hope for one of the first health care workers in the u.s. fighting covid-19 i see a light at the end of the tunnel. >> inside the massive medical triumph, the scientists who believe and broke down barriers. >> this is not a normal timeline for a vaccine, but these are not normal times. >> and behind the scenes of the record breaking roll-out. >> i compare it to a world war. >> from manufacturing and moving shipments across america had, all timed to the minute, no room for error will it be safe? will people take it? will we be able to stop wearing masks and the face behind the vaccine, how one doctor answered the call of a lifetime. >> i got an alert and my immediate reaction was go. >> "nightline," the shot, race

for the vaccine, will be right >> "nightline," the shot, race for the vaccine, will be right back. easy to wear with soothing vicks vapors for her, for you, for the whole family. trusted soothing vapors, from vicks struggling to clean tough messes with wipes? try mr. clean magic eraser sheets. just wet, squeeze and erase icky messes in microwaves and on stovetops for an amazing clean, get the power of mr. clean magic eraser in disposable sheets. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ visit your volvo retailer for special offers during our holiday safely sales event.

♪ thanks for joining us, this is d-day, the day a covid vaccine landed on the shores of american hospitals. as doctors lose 90 americans to covid every hour, the nation

begins innoculating medical workers with the first approved vaccine in the u.s. a weapon designed to win the war against the pandemic. it's ban grueling year for a team of scientist thes working around the clock since the world first learned about the deadly pathogen, their work largely unseen until today. ♪ >> i see a light at the end of the tunnel. >> at 9:23 in the morning she had became one of the first people in the united states to get the covid-19 vaccine. the critical care nurse at t jewish medical center in new york, working through the pandemic and losing loved ones as well. >> i say to everyone, please, get the vaccine, and listen to the science and let the science guide your decisions. >> three, two, one, vaccinate.

applause. >> across america today, a giant dose of hope for a country struggling under the weight of the pandemic for nearly year. la logging more deaths and hospitalizations from are -- from the infection than anywhere in the world. vaccines rolling on out to front lion health care workers and nursing care residents as the largest vaccination in u.s. history gets under way. with about a third of americans vaccinated by the end of march. the story of how this vaccine with 95% efficiency and delivered in record time came to be is nothing short of miraculous. >> when i think about the major

infectious disease accomplish. s in public health in my lifetime t polio vaccine, small pox, they have saved millions and millions of lives. they took decades to accomplish, if we can stop it in its tracks, that would be a phenomenal accomplish. >> it's only been a year since the world first heard reports of a strange virus coming out of china. >> chinese health authorities are working to identify the virus behind a outbreak in the central city of wuhan. >> scientists leaping in to action while the rest of the country remained mostly unaware of the deadly virus. >> from the first moment, i decided that we were going to have to get to work to figure out a path to vaccine. >> within that sequence, scientists looking for a small bit of the library to use a

vaccine. >> when the gemnome was published, i got an alert on my phone and my immediate reaction was go. as soon as the sequence was released, we could quickly maneuver towards the vaccine development. >> bio tech company moderna has collaborated with the nih before. >> it was really exciting in the first few days. first weekend in january, knowing that we were going to be able to move quickly. by january 21st, when there was the first case in the u.s., we had just aligned on what our vaccine would look like. when that first case happened, we said, we need to move much faster. >> in germany, a married couple are racing to develop a drug. >> my first reaction was we have to stop it. it felt like an obligation. >> the pair had created the

technology to fight cancer using genneagai genetic material. >> we have the technology in place and we already knew our technology is able to prevent infectious diseases of other kinds. >> we are immune system whisperers and needed to engineer the best possible vaccine. >> we were not racing against each other, we were racing against time. >> the first human to human case of coronavirus here in the u.s. as health officials declare a global health emergency. >> by early february, all the front-runners for a vaccine are running. johnson and johnson uses viral vector technology, taking a different kind of virus, scooping out the innards and replacing them with a kind of instruction manuel. >> when injected it coaxes your cells to produce cells that look like those on the outside of the

coronavirus, from there, your immune system will mount a defense. >> novavax takes a more traditional approach. >> one thing we bring to the table is our company had done it for ebo hla, we have been fast, and made a vaccine similar to what we have here. >> moderna and bion-tech were betting on mrna. >> these vaccines take genetic material and coat it in a protective package that is injected in to your body. that instructs your cells to start churning out proteins that we would see normally on the surface of the coronavirus. the immune system thinks it's a foreign invader and mounts a defense as though you had actually been attacked by the real virus. >> the technology allows us to make a completely new vaccine in less than 30 days. >> we are able to move quickly because our technology has been used in personalized cancer vaccine programs in the past. >> the mrna vaccines we have

been investing in for quite some type, because you only have to change a tiny little bit to have it make a vaccine. and so, that's why it can be done much faster. >> you needed to get multiple platforms and multiple candidates. you could not put all of your eggs in one basket. so, we need to make sure that it's safe, and we need to make sure it works. that entire process will take at least a year and a year and a half. >> i thought that was ridiculously optimistic. aspirational. >> just ask the united states suspends travel from europe, moderna moves the phase 1 vaccine trial up from april to march. enlisting abrasive - - - - - brave volunteers. >> it was important for me to take a risk that others can't. >> jennifer holler getting the first injection in seattle as part of the clinical trial.

>> i was not afraid because i trust science. >> the day after moderna launched the phase one trials, biontech announces they will partner with pfizer one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. >> i have never seen us working with a partner better than we are working now with biontech and that was very important, so we can be able to deliver. >> meanwhile, johnson and johnson scientists identify a vaccine candidate that was succeeding in the laboratory. >> and there was first a moment that i was called on friday afternoon by one of my team members and she told me, it's working. >> by early may, with millions on lockdown and the virus r ravaging the country, the pressure is on to come up with a vaccine as quickly as possible. >> i read the newspapers and it's really horrible and it's motivating to go the extra mile again and again and again to get

the vaccine out. >> health and human services secretary applies pressure to the process. >> i stepped back and i said, you know, we are the country that put a man on the moon, that created the atomic bomb, and we can create vaccines by january 1st. >> through funding bills my administration is providing $10 billion to support a medical research effort without parallel. it's called operation warp speed. that means big and it means fast. >> operation warp speed, harnesses the power of pharmaceutical companies in the the u.s. military. and collapses the three phase vaccine development process so that the steps happen simultaneously. >> no one, and certainly the fda wants to see any short cuts in the development process. so we have had a number of measures that we instituted such as rolling review of data, that is cut months to years off of the development process.

>> on june 1st warp speed begins the mass production of vaccine. >> previously, we responded to things like ebola, zeka, we were build for pandemic response. all the equipment you see in here, the 2,000 liter tanks we can crank out millions doses of vaccine. >> once there's a vaccine, the task of rolling it out. >> if i have manage the logistics for three kids in three different schools in a pandemic i can manage distribution of a vaccine. i switched to geico and got more! more savings on car insurance!? they helped with homeowners, too! ok! plus motorcycle, boat and rv insurance! geico's got you covered! like a blanket!

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♪ it was the moment the world had been waiting for. >> when we heard that, people jumping up and down, and hugging and kissing, and then remembering, wear your mask before you kiss me? >> i got the call from the ceo of pfizer, saying tony are you sitting down? >> in early november, pfizer announced the result from their phase three study. >> breaking news now in the covid crisis, pfizer announced this morning that their two-shot vaccine is more than 90% effective. >> the first sign of hope that the pandemic could soon come to an end and then a week later there was more news from moderna. >> what we saw with the pfizer vaccine was re-affirmed when moderna came out with their preliminary data. >> moderna announcing their vaccine is nearly 95% effective. >> this mrna approach appears to be working. not only is it working, it seems

to be working better than anybody anticipated that it would. >> but developing an effective vaccine against covid-19 was of only one leg in this marathon. getting the doses from manufacturers in to the arms of millions americans was the next part of the race. once the medicine gets a green light, an historic collaboration between various industries and government kicks off. it's not just about the race to find a vaccine, it's also about the race to figure out how to transport millions doses across the world. >> from day one, we started developing our processes. we started building our manufacturing size. we started ordering materials like if we had one. >> the vaccines need to be kept in specific temperatures making shipping a massive effort. >> we will have aircraft that are exclusively dedicated to carrying vaccine. we started in april working on the structural modifications, working with the fda, working on

procedures to be able to safely carry that much volume of dry ice, that much weight of dry ice and that many vaccines. >> if i can manage the logistics for three kids in three different schools in a pandemic, i can manage distribution of a vaccine. so this is what we call the cool box. it has a gps thermalalalalalal tracking its movement every day. it will have personal treys about the size of a personal pizza box. in each tray is 135,000 doses. >> we have to have the ability to store vaccine. so we built a 15,000 square foot freezer. >> we have gone in every state, territory and certify and figured out where all the ultra cold refrigeration is. >> the u.s. military stepped in to help coordinator. >> the majority of my career is

logistics and sustainment. what is cool, is after d-day. >> is everyone calling it that? >> yeah, 24 hours later sacvaccs are on the street. >> this is the next d-day for him, that's when the u.s. forces went on out to put an end to the enemy and this time, the enemy is invisible, and now, the enemy is covid-19. >> it's about getting shots in arms and where will the shots in arms occur, is in this list here, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, long-term care facilities. >> this effort all for the hope that 20 million americans will be vaccinated by the end of 2020. the cdc's recommendation is that in phase one, there should be three groups of people who were offered the vaccine first, at the top of phase 1, it involves health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities. the government started vaccinating health care workers and the elderly today.

>> it's ultimately up to each state to each governor, to figure out a plan on how to allocate and implement these vaccines. and it will be a complex process. >> the vaccines right now, are going to be heading first to the wealthiest countries. about 13% of the world's population are going to be getting about 51% of the available vaccines. is it fair? >> all this cooperation and preparation leading to the moment when the fda authorizationed the vaccine. >> the fda has just issued an emergency use authorization order for pfizer's vaccine. >> this is the moment that the nation has been waiting for. take a look behind me here, you can see the first trucks filled with the vaccine leaving the pfizer facility. escorted by u.s. marshals, heading to airports across the country. >> that is the first u.p.s. plane to carry the covid-19 shipment, it just touched down

in louisville. >> bravo charlie -- >> now, we are built for this moment to really make a difference. >> it will go to 64 jurisdictions simultaneously. 50 states, eight territories and six metropolitan cities. >> pfizer control tower will have 24 hour eyes on every shipper that leaves the facility. to me, every dose is a miracle, no dose will be left behind. >> although the vaccine has finally arrived. there's still unknowns, and it's clear that this was an extraordinary effort to help rid the world of this virus. >> you have the unsung heroes, the scientists and researchers who spent day and night working on the development of a vaccine that will have its place in history. that is unprecedented. not just here in the united states, but worldwide.

and that's a big deal. >> i hope hit will look back on this time as a time that really tested all of us as a world community. but, that, that we came together to fight a common enemy this pandemic and not protection from the pfizer vaccine could possibly last as long as four-6 months. according to trial data from the company. and coming up, how this doctor fought fear with facts. and reshaped america'ses battle against covid-19. chill for a fast-acting rush of relief like you've never tasted in... ♪ honey lemon ahh woo vicks vapocool drops now in honey lemon chill just between us, cleaning with a mop and bucket is such a hassle.

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♪ finally tonight the woman who helped find the key to unlocking the vaccine. meet dr. korbet of north carolina, going down in history for being a key player in the fight against covid-19. >> she is an african-american scientist who is right at the forefront of the development of

the vaccine. >> the gravity of her work not lost on dr. corbett. >> i wanted it to be visible, i wanted people to understand that i stooded by the work that i had done for so long. for me, what success looks like is a large proportion of the population vaccinated so that we can return to our so-called normal life. >> lighting the way. that's "nightline" for tonight, see you back here tomorrow, same time, thanks fo we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right, not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right.