An advisory panel from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Sunday recommended that people over 75 and certain key primary care workers are next for COVID-19 vaccines.
The Advisory Commission on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 13-1 to advise the CDC to include those 75 and older and specific key frontline workers, including counselors and teachers, in the next phase of coronavirus vaccinations, several news outlets reported Sunday. . .
These recommendations would apply to phase 1b of the vaccination process, after the committee and the CDC advised that health professionals and residents of nursing and long-term care facilities receive the first vaccinations in the country. Phase 1b aims to vaccinate about 50 million people by the end of February The New York Times.
The ACIP has also decided that the groups that should be prioritized in Stage 1c are adults ages 65 to 74 and adults ages 16 to 64 with underlying medical conditions. The phase will also involve other key workers, such as correction workers, postal workers, public transport workers and food supply workers, who were not included in the first two phases.
The advisory panel said it had determined the priority groups based on information from scientists, ethicists, vaccination experts and the general public, NBC News reported.
José Romero, chairman of the ACIP and secretary of the Arkansas Department of Health, said the groups had been selected “to address the current lack of vaccine supply and those individuals at highest risk of disease”, CNN reported.
CDC director Robert Redfield
Robert Redfield CDC panel votes to recommend Moderna vaccine for emergency use low risk, emails show MORE reviews the recommendations of the ACIP and determines whether the agency adopts them as an official guideline. At the meeting, the ACIP noted that its advice was not binding, as any state could tailor the recommendations for its own population, the Times said.
Public health experts initially indicated that they would get a larger group of essential workers to receive the vaccine earlier than older adults. But ACIP member Kathleen Dooling noted that those 75 and older make up 25 percent of COVID-19-related hospital admissions, although they make up 8 percent of the population, according to NBC News.
The recommendations come after Americans received the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and after the Food and Drug Administration approved the Moderna vaccine last week. Now about 6 million doses of the Moderna vaccine are shipped across the country.
The ACIP issued its guidelines as the US has confirmed 17.8 million COVID-19 cases and 317,408 fatalities, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
It’s also because the country has counted more than 150,000 new cases every day since early December and as the US braces for the holidays. According to The COVID Tracking Project, COVID-19-related hospital admissions have also remained above 100,000 every day since December 2.