The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it authorised the use of Pfizer Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine on Friday, with the first inoculations expected within days, marking a turning point in the United States where the pandemic has killed more than 292,000 people.

The US FDA granted an emergency use authorization for the vaccine, developed with German partner BioNTech, which was shown to be 95 percent effective in preventing the disease in a late-stage trial...