The race for a COVID-19 vaccine is coming to a head as multiple companies are in the middle of trials to test it out on humans.
Pfizer, Moderna and other pharmaceutical companies are nearing the final stages of the vaccine process, and some states have already gotten in line for the first doses.
MSNBC spoke with 16-year-old Melanie, who is participating in the trials for the Pfizer vaccine with her parents.
"I knew that I was doing it for a good cause and its important that people of color and people of my age group are represented in the trial," she told MSNBC's Katy Tur.
"Both my parents did the trial as well and I did it about a month later. My mom asked me and I thought I was called to do it. With the U.S. surpassing 200,000 deaths, its hard as a teenager to watch. So it was really important to participate," Melanie said.
She explained that one of the biggest misconceptions people have is that you can get the coronavirus from the vaccine, which is not true.
"Its not possible to get COVID from the vaccine whatsoever. I did my first dose a couple weeks ago and I have a second one in mid December. Nothing other than a sore arm like after a flu shot. No fatigue, no headache," she said.
"I'm proud to know that I'm a part of the change. And its really important for the people on the front lines. Quality of education is being affected and mental health is too, especially in my age group. Its really hard seeing people my age affected. Its giving Americans that glimpse of hope that we need and I'm glad to be a part of that," she added.
The world has been battling COVID-19 for nearly an entire year, but unfortunately the pandemic has only worsened as time has passed.
The United States set multiple records for COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths in November, and experts are concerned that numbers will skyrocket after the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. The cases that came in November alone represent a third of all the cases the country has ever had since the beginning of the pandemic, according to CNN.
States reported 36,900 deaths in November, about 51 an hour, and a daily average of 1,231 COVID-19 deaths. Experts told CNN that the country will most likely hit 4,000 deaths per day in a few days.
Wednesday was particularly devastating, with 2,733 dying from COVID-19 and a record of nearly 200,000 new cases. For the first time, the country has more than 100,000 people in the hospital because of the coronavirus, according to The COVID Tracking Project.
Our daily update is published. States reported 1.4 million tests, 196k cases, and 2,733 deaths. There are 100,226 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the US —the first time hospitalizations have exceeded 100k. pic.twitter.com/8QSKujBGao
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) December 3, 2020
On Wednesday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
said Pfizer will be sending the state doses for 170,000 people by December 15.
Gothamist reported that Cuomo said the Trump administration believes vaccine makers will have enough doses for 20 million people by the end of the month. The CDC has said that healthcare workers and nursing homes will be prioritized for the first doses. Teachers, firefighters and police officers will get the next round of vaccines, according to state guidelines.
"This is going to be the largest governmental operation not just through COVID, this is going to be the largest governmental operation since World War II, in my opinion," Cuomo said. "To give you an idea of how massive this is… this nation has done about 130 million COVID tests since day one of COVID. We need to do 330 million vaccines twice. How long does that take?"
"This state, more testing than any state in the United States, we've done just about the population of the state doing everything we could. And that's taken us nine months to do a COVID test, and very few people refuse a COVID test, it's not a frightening test, it's a nasal swab. Now you're asking a person to take two vaccines, which is [a] more elaborate medical process, and they're distrusting about vaccine going in. So this is going to be an incredibly challenging period to undertake both of these at the same time," Cuomo added.
