CDC Recommends Essential Workers and Older Americans Next in Line for Vaccine
A CDC advisory committee is recommending that Americans age 75 and older, along with essential workers like firefighters, teachers, and grocery store workers be next in line to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
As per the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the first tier of Americans to receive the vaccine were health care workers and long-term care facility residents.
The committee, which is composed of health care experts in the field of immunization, makes recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control, and they are almost always adopted.
They voted on Sunday for the latest recommendation by a tally of 13 to 1. They also discussed the next tier to be vaccinated, which could include Americans age 65-to-75, as well as those who are age 16-to-64 who have high-risk medical conditions, and other essential workers not already vaccinated.
These latest recommendations come as a second COVID-19 vaccine, made by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health, begin to be shipped and a second week of shipments arrive of the Pfizer vaccine.
The CDC says that roughly 556,000 Americans received the first dose of the vaccine last week.
Some 20 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine are on track to be delivered before the end of the year. However, each person must receive two doses of the vaccine for full effect, which has been shown in both vaccines to be higher than 90% effective.
As far as when this second tier of people for the vaccine will receive it is up to state governors depending on their vaccination plans and distribution of the vaccine. The advisory panel has been offering guidance to state leaders regarding how to handle the distribution of the vaccine.
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