By STEPHANIE EBBS and ARIELLE MITROPOULOS, ABC News(ATLANTA) — A group of independent experts is set to vote Tuesday on who should get the first shots of a COVID-19 vaccine once it’s authorized by the Food and Drug Administration.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee on vaccines, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or ACIP, is scheduled to vote on who it recommends should receive the initial limited supply of COVID-19 vaccines. The panel is expected to recommend that health care workers treating COVID-19 patients and residents and staff in nursing homes and long-term care facilities be first in line.
Early in the meeting, Beth Bell, a clinical professor of global health at the University of Washington and leader of the committee’s vaccine work group, took a moment to acknowledge the severity of COVID-19 in the country saying an average of one person is dying from the disease every minute.
“In the time it takes us to have this ACIP meeting 180 people will have died from COVID-19, so we are acting none too soon,” she said.
The committee discussed how to prioritize vaccine distribution within the population of health care workers, specifically, including considerations for pregnant or breastfeeding health care personnel since the vaccine candidates have not been studied in how they affect pregnant women. The recommendations include prioritizing health care personnel in direct contact with patients and who can’t telework, provide services to patients or family members of patients, and those who handle infectious materials before moving on to vaccinate other groups.
“Vaccinating healthcare personnel supports the principle of maximizing benefits and minimizing harms through what we are calling the multiplier effect,” explained Dr. Kathleen Dooling, Medical Officer for the Division of Viral Diseases, the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and the CDC.
“Protection of health care personnel leads to preservation of health care capacity, and better health outcomes for all. It promotes justice because health care personnel put themselves at risk and will be essential to carry out the vaccination program. Vaccinating healthcare personnel also has the potential to mitigate health inequities, because the group includes a broad range of occupations, inclusive of low wage earners and racial and ethnic minority groups,” Dooling added.
Nancy Messonier, Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at CDC, also said most jurisdictions anticipate being able to vaccinate all health care workers within three weeks.
The recommendations also include guidance like hospitals and local health departments working on plans to vaccinate outpatient providers and personnel outside the hospital setting and that medical facilities should stagger vaccinations for people working in the same unit in the event of any side effects that could cause people to miss work.
The focus this week is on which groups of Americans can receive the first round of vaccine doses. While Pfizer and Moderna have both applied for emergency use authorization the committee will make recommendations based on specific vaccines after FDA has authorized that vaccine for specific groups.
HHS Secretary Alex Azar has said he will work with CDC so the FDA committee considering whether vaccines should be authorized and the CDC advisory group can meet at the same time so there are recommendations for how to distribute the initial doses of vaccine available as quickly as possible as shipments start to go out to states.
Then, as more doses are produced and become more widely available, other groups of frontline workers or Americans with less risk will be able to access the vaccine.
The ACIP committee is made up of experts from around the country who make recommendations about how vaccines should be used, including who should receive certain vaccines and when, and the recommended schedule for vaccinating children. The members don’t work for the government but provide independent expertise in how vaccines work, how the immune system responds, family medicine, and infectious diseases.
After the committee’s recommendations are reviewed and published by CDC, states can use them to inform how they will ultimately distribute the first round of vaccine doses.
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