Health-care workers and nursing home residents should be the first to get coronavirus vaccines, CDC advisory group says

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Tue, 2020-12-01 18:18 — mike kraft

Health-care workers and nursing home residents should be the first to get coronavirus vaccines, CDC advisory group says States are likely to put health-care workers first, as debates over the place of older Americans and front-line workers intensify. Lena H. Sun, Isaac Stanley-Becker Washington Post

The first doses of a coronavirus vaccine should be given to an estimated 21 million health-care workers and three million residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, a federal advisory panel recommended Tuesday afternoon.

These groups were deemed the highest priority by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, because the vaccine will initially be in extremely short supply after it is cleared by federal regulators. Health-care personnel are a top priority because of their exposure to the virus and their critical role keeping the nation’s hospitals and clinics functioning.

Residents and employees of long-term care facilities were prioritized because they account for nearly 40 percent of deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

The recommendations for the highest priority groups, known as phase 1a, will be sent to CDC Director Robert Redfield, who also informs Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. If the recommendations are approved, they will become official CDC recommendations on immunization in the United States and provide guidance to state officials, who are scrambling to meet a Friday deadline for vaccine distribution planning.

The committee voted 13 to 1 to prioritize the two groups. Helen Keipp Talbot, an associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University, was the sole dissenting vote. Unease over the recommendations centered on the inclusion of long-term care residents, with several panel members saying there was insufficient vaccine safety and efficacy data to support immunizing them right away. ...

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