Healthcare Workers and Elderly Care Home Residents Will Get First Doses of COVID-19 Vaccine, CDC Panel Says

Frontline healthcare workers and elderly residents of long-term care facilities will receive the very first COVID-19 vaccinations, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory board recommended Tuesday. These groups will make up Phase 1A of U.S. vaccine recipients who will receive the first 40 million or so doses that could be available by the end of the year. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently reviewing two vaccines, from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, for emergency use authorization. According to the CDC, there are about 21 million healthcare workers, including people who work in hospitals, long term care facilities, home healthcare, pharmacies, emergency medical services as well as in public health, and about 3 million older Americans living in skilled nursing or long term care facilities. The 13 to 1 vote by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was the first official step toward prioritizing who will get the scarce first doses of any COVID-19 vaccine. Over the nearly four hour meeting, the committee discussed in detail who within these two priority groups would get access first when doses are limited early on. For example, the committee wanted to ensure that people who work directly in providing patient care will be first in line. Read more: The First U.S. Shipments of COVID-19 Vaccines Will Include 6.4 Million Doses The reasons for focusing on healthcare workers and long term care residents include both the p...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 News overnight Source Type: news