By Jenni Marsh, James Griffiths, Amy Woodyatt, Mike Hayes and Fernando Alfonso III, CNN
From CNN's Michael Callahan
The first freight trucks carrying approximately 184,275 vials of the vaccine have departed Pfizer on Sunday.
Trucks carrying a combined 189 boxes of vaccine vials are expected to arrive in all 50 states on Monday.
Another 3,900 vials are expected to ship later today to US territories.
On Monday, another 400 boxes packed with approximately 390-thousand vials will ship for arrival on Tuesday.
Watch as first doses of vaccine ship out from Pfizer facility:
The loading process of the first shipment of Pfizer vaccine has begun at the Kalamazoo facility in Michigan. This first shipment of vaccine will be going to all 50 states.
Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of the federal government's vaccine initiative Operation Warp Speed previously said he expected 145 sites across all the states to receive the vaccine on Monday, another 425 sites on Tuesday, and the final 66 sites on Wednesday, which will complete the initial delivery of the Pfizer orders for the vaccine.
Watch Pfizer vaccine be prepared for shipment:
From Claudia Otto in Berlin
Germany will go into a "hard" national lockdown starting next Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday, after agreeing to stricter measures with state governments to stem a wave of coronavirus cases.
As of next Wednesday, all non-essential shops, services and schools will close until January 10, and Christmas Day gatherings will be reduced from 10 people to only five from two different households.
"The philosophy is to stay at home,” Merkel said in a press conference.
New measures to curb spread over festive season: Christmas church services will be subject to prior registration with no singing allowed. Alcohol is to be banned from all public spaces and an annual New Year's Eve fireworks display will be canceled. Some states are also implementing additional measures, such as Bavaria, which will have a 9 p.m. curfew.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has pledged economic help for all businesses affected by the lockdown.
On Sunday, Germany recorded 20,200 new coronavirus infections -- 2,000 more than Sunday last week -- according to the Robert Koch Institute, the country's agency for disease control. The overall infection number stands at 1,320,716. The death toll rose by 321 to 21,787, data showed.
From CNN's Madeline Holcombe
With the greenlight of the FDA's emergency use authorization, Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccines will be sent out to hundreds of facilities across the United States this week.
"We expect 145 sites across all the states to receive the vaccine on Monday, another 425 sites on Tuesday, and the final 66 sites on Wednesday, which will complete the initial delivery of the Pfizer orders for the vaccine," said Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of the federal government's vaccine initiative Operation Warp Speed.
The vaccine is being shipped from Pfizer's facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
The US Food and Drug Administration granted approval Friday for the drug company's Covid-19 vaccine candidate, a move that director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research said "holds the promise to alter the course of this pandemic."
A grim death toll and record high hospitalizations: As of early Sunday, more than 16 million people have been infected by the virus in the United States and 297,837 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Hospitalizations hit record highs for the seventh day in a row Saturday, and with the winter holidays still ahead, experts warn that the pandemic could continue to worsen before the larger public receives the vaccination.
Vaccine hesitancy could undermine Covid-19 response: American Medical Association President Dr. Susan Bailey said in a statement Saturday the biggest obstacle to the vaccine is people's willingness to be vaccinated.
"To be clear, these vaccines will reduce death and severe illness. They have been rigorously evaluated, and if enough of us roll up our sleeves and get vaccinated, we can eventually reclaim normalcy," she said.
Advisers to the CDC have recommended that health care workers and long-term care facility residents be first in line to get the injection.
Read the full story:
From CNN's Nadine Schmidt in Berlin
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is meeting with the leaders of 16 federal state governments Sunday to set out a coordinated plan ahead of Christmas to tighten coronavirus restrictions on a national level.
New potential nationwide curbs include the closure of non-essential retail shops as early as this coming week ahead of the holiday period.
On Sunday, Germany recorded 20,200 new coronavirus infections -- 2,000 more than Sunday last week -- according to the Robert Koch Institute, the country's agency for disease control. The overall infection number stands at 1,320,716. The death toll rose by 321 to 21,787, data showed.
Post-Christmas lockdown: Earlier this week, Merkel said she wanted to implement a full lockdown for as long as two weeks after Christmas to bring down infection numbers.
Several German states, including Berlin, Bavaria, Saxony, Thuringia, Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig Holstein announced additional lockdown restrictions in an attempt to curb the spread of coronavirus after the country reached record highs in daily infection numbers, death rates and ICU occupancies due to coronavirus.
On Friday, Germany recorded nearly 30,000 new coronavirus infections and nearly 600 deaths within 24 hours.
Merkel is set to reveal the country's potential new coronavirus curbs at a press conference later Sunday.
From CNN's David McKenzie in Johannesburg, South Africa
When 90-year-old Margaret Keenan received the world's first clinically authorized and tested Covid-19 vaccine earlier this week, the end of the Covid-19 pandemic seemed finally in reach.
Tough months lie ahead, but the rollout of the first vaccine in record time and the likely imminent approvals of others, is a turning point for wealthy countries that can afford vaccines.
But for public health officials in the developing world, it is a harsh reminder that the race to end this deadly pandemic will separate the world's haves and the have-nots.
The alleged Covid-19 vaccine hoarding and bitter experience of past inequalities leave many feeling cynical about global solidarity.
Vaccine shopping spree: Rich countries have been on a vaccine shopping spree for months. A continuously updated database compiled by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center shows bilateral deals worth billions of dollars by a handful of countries for emerging vaccines.
Several countries and regional blocks have preordered vaccines that could cover far more than their entire populations. The People's Vaccine Alliance, an international vaccine watchdog that includes Amnesty International and Oxfam, said this past week that rich countries have bought enough Covid-19 vaccine doses to immunize their populations three times over.
The Canadian government alone has secured enough inoculations to vaccinate their citizens five or even six times over, though not all the vaccine candidates it preordered may be approved for usage.
The Alliance's data shows that while the world's wealthiest nations are snapping up deals, nearly 70 poor countries will only be able to vaccinate one in 10 people at best during 2021.
From CNN's Julia Horowitz
It's one of the biggest logistical challenges in modern history: How will millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses that must be kept at incredibly cold temperatures be quickly shipped across continents and oceans?
One company is using its experience with tuna as a guide.
Thermo King — which revolutionized the transportation of food through advances in temperature-controlled shipping before World War II — is working with pharmaceutical companies, governments and logistics firms to ensure vaccines are preserved as they travel to clinics and hospitals. To make this happen, they've reworked containers typically used to transport fresh tuna to Japan, which requires similar frigid conditions.
"We took that product and we amended it," Francesco Incalza, president Thermo King Europe, Middle East and Africa, told CNN Business.
Tuna must be stored at -60 degrees Celsius, or -76 degrees Fahrenheit, to maintain its quality and deep red hue when it reaches supermarkets and restaurants, Incalza said. The coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech has to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius, or -94 degrees Fahrenheit, while in transit.
So Thermo King, which is part of Ireland-based Trane Technologies, made some tweaks, adding additional insulation and adjusting the refrigeration system so it could get even colder. Now, each 20-foot-long container can carry 300,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine — the first to be approved for use by Western countries following rigorous testing — by land or sea. Some have already been sold and are making their way around the globe.
Incalza said this kind of innovation would normally take years to develop.
According to Johns Hopkins University's tally, the United States has recorded 16,062,299 cases of coronavirus and at least 297,818 people there have died from the virus.
On Saturday, Johns Hopkins University recorded 219,510 new cases and 2,368 new deaths across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
Saturday was the seventh day in a row that hospitalizations hit a record high, with 108,487 patients in hospitals around the country, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
The US added an additional 1 million cases in the past four days. It took the nation more than eight months to reach 8 million cases but less than two months to double that, as the number of new cases continues to soar.
That dire new toll comes as a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee voted Saturday to recommend the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for patients 16 and older. Doses will begin to be rolled out in the coming days.
From CNN's Leah Asmelash
Tony and Lisa Vasquez were high school sweethearts. Last week, within hours of each other, they died from Covid-19.
Tony and Lisa grew up in Superior, Arizona, according to the funeral pamphlet obtained by CNN. They met in high school, where both were very active -- participating in marching band and running track. Afterward, Tony enlisted in the Navy, serving six years total, and Lisa attended Mesa Community College. In 1999, they tied the knot, and later gave birth to daughter Brisa, now 17.
Tony and Lisa are just two of the more than 7,000 Arizonans who have died from Covid-19, which has also taken almost 300,000 lives across the US. As the virus has continued to worsen in recent months, many states, including Arizona, have seen a record number of confirmed cases.
