 Welcome to Thursday's Overnight Health Care. You are supposed to expect the unexpected trying to hold a pandemic wedding. But nothing can prepare you for Gritty. Follow us at @NateWeixel, @jessiehellmann and @PeterSullivan4. There have been 50 million coronavirus shots administered, but there's still a long way to go. Pfizer's vaccine can now be stored at standard freezer temperatures, and Rand Paul is under fire for his questioning of one of Biden's health nominees. We'll start with some vaccine news: Biden marks 50 million coronavirus vaccines but warns virus fight not over President Biden on Thursday marked the 50 millionth coronavirus vaccine shot delivered in the United States and said the country was making progress in defeating the pandemic and returning to normal life. But he also warned Americans not to let their guard down. Biden said the vaccine count marked major progress toward reaching and surpassing his administration's goal of getting 100 million shots in the arms of Americans in his first 100 days in office. "Today, I am here to report we are halfway there. Fifty million shots in just 37 days since I have become president. That is weeks ahead of schedule, even with the setbacks we faced during the recent winter storms," Biden said in the South Court Auditorium Thursday afternoon. "We are moving in the right direction, though, despite the mess with inherited from the previous administration, which left us with no real plan to vaccinate all Americans," Biden said, echoing other administration officials who have characterized the Trump administration's vaccination plan as insufficient. Coming next: Biden celebrated the news that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analysis found Johnson & Johnson's single-dose coronavirus vaccine to be effective, but promised not to put "political pressure" on the FDA to grant emergency use authorization for the vaccine. "If the FDA approves the use of this new vaccine, we have a plan to roll it out as quickly as Johnson & Johnson can produce it," Biden said. An FDA advisory committee will meet tomorrow to vote on recommending the vaccine for authorization. Vaccine rollout: It's going faster than 1 million shots a day, which was what most people expected to happen when Biden first announced his 100 million shots goal. Barriers remain, and while supply is expected to increase, there are numerous potential hiccups in the fragile supply chain that could slow the effort. Read more here. Pfizer to study booster shot aimed at virus variant Both Pfizer and Moderna have now laid out strategies for adapting vaccines for the variants. Pfizer is studying whether a third shot, 6 to 12 months later, will fight the variants, avoiding the need for an updated vaccine. But it's working on an updated vaccine too, just in case. "While we have not seen any evidence that the circulating variants result in a loss of protection provided by our vaccine, we are taking multiple steps to act decisively and be ready in case a strain becomes resistant to the protection afforded by the vaccine," said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. Moderna said Wednesday that it has sent doses of an updated vaccine against the South African variant to the National Institutes of Health for study. Read more here. In more Pfizer news, it will also be easier to store that vaccine, as the FDA approves storage at standard freezer temps The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved storing Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine at standard freezer temperatures, helping ease storage requirements that could make delivery of the vaccine easier. The Pfizer vaccine had previously been required to be stored in ultra-cold freezers at -112º F to -76º F. That posed a challenge for distribution of the vaccine in rural areas or lower income countries that do not have widespread ultra-cold storage capability. The new move will allow the vaccine to be stored at "conventional temperatures commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers for a period of up to two weeks." "This alternative temperature for transportation and storage of the undiluted vials is significant and allows the vials to be transported and stored under more flexible conditions," Peter Marks, a top FDA vaccine official, said in a statement. Read more here. | 
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