CDC Advisers Recommend These Groups as First Ones to Receive Coronavirus Vaccine
A group of independent experts advised the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Tuesday on who should get the first doses of the long-awaited coronavirus vaccine.
According to the panel in the public meeting, health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities should be the first individuals to get the coronavirus vaccine once approved by regulators.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) held the meeting virtually and to vote on the proposed language for the coronavirus vaccine recommendation, reported NBC News.
The proposal was passed 13 to 1.
According to Fox News, these recommendations then have to be approved by the CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield before distribution to states and the said groups as part of the Phase 1A distribution plans.
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This plan is still depends of approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which still has a pending application for emergency use from the drugmaker Pfizer.
Pfizer was the first pharmaceutical company to apply for authorization from the FDA, followed by biotech company Moderna.
Both Pfizer and Moderna have developed coronavirus vaccines with over 90% efficacy in late-state clinical trials.
The panel that put forward the recommendations consistently offers advice for the CDC, which the agency almost always accepts.
Coronavirus Vaccine Could Come as Early as This Month
The first Americans might receive the shot against the virus as early as this month, fulfilling promises of an inoculation before the year's end.
If the CDC does push through with the recommendations, it will have to jab roughly 21 million health care workers and some three million long-term care facility residents in the country
"To date, more than 240,000 healthcare workers have contracted COVID-19 and 858 have died," CDC said in a statement.
The agency also estimated that deaths in long-term care facilities make up 40 percent of all the total death toll against the virus nationwide.
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These numbers contributed to the recommendations in preventing the spread of the virus by providing safeguards for those on the front lines and the most vulnerable.
ACIP also discussed how to best prioritize people within the first groups during distribution of the vaccines.
Considerations like pregnant or breastfeeding health care workers have not yet been studied so the committee will likely discuss this matter further.
But health care workers that come in direct contact with patients and can't conduct telework, provide services to patients and their families, and those who handle infectious materials will be prioritized within the health care worker group.
"Vaccinating healthcare personnel supports the principle of maximizing benefits and minimizing harms through what we are calling the multiplier effect," Dr. Kathleen Dooling, Medical Officer for the Division of Viral Diseases told ABC News.
CDC to Hold Another Meeting After Coronavirus Vaccine Approval
The CDC's statement added that there will be another meeting after the FDA authorizes or approves a vaccine. This is to craft vaccine-specific advisories.
States won't be penalized for not following the guidelines. They are simply frameworks for what officials might want to follow.
So there may be some states that will stray from the recommendations based on what is specific for them. However, some states are still expected to follow the recommendations, one expert said.
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