PUBLISHED MON, DEC
14 20203:47 PM EST Sarah O’Brien@SARAHTGOBRIEN
KEY POINTS
·
Shipment of 2.9
million doses of the first U.S.-authorized coronavirus vaccine began Sunday,
headed for hundreds of distribution sites across the country.
·
The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that health-care workers and
residents of long-term-care facilities get prioritized in this early phase of
distribution.
·
For individuals who
are 65 or older — an age group especially hard-hit by Covid — getting a vaccine
could happen in the first few months of 2021, depending on how quickly supply
ramps up.
For
the nation’s oldest individuals who are eager for protection against Covid, the
waiting game has commenced.
Shipment
of 2.9 million doses of the first U.S.-authorized coronavirus vaccine began
Sunday, headed for hundreds of sites around the country. With initial supply
limited — the total U.S. population is roughly 330 million — the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention recommends that health-care workers and
residents of long-term-care facilities get prioritized in this first phase.
In
other words, excluding older folks in those facilities — which includes nursing
homes and the like — the 65-and-older crowd may need to exercise some patience.
“Seniors
could start getting their vaccines maybe in the first quarter, but it really is
going to depend on how quickly supply ramps up,” said Jennifer Kates, a senior
vice president and director of global health & HIV policy for the Kaiser
Family Foundation.
The
Food and Drug Administration on Friday authorized Pfizer and BioNTech’s
coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in individuals age 16 and older. One from
Moderna could also get similar approval from the FDA in the coming days.
“If
the Moderna vaccine is authorized this week, that will help, because there will
be more supply,” Kates said.
Nevertheless, demand is expected to exceed supply during
the first months of the vaccination program, according to a CDC advisory
committee. And although the vaccine will be distributed and administered in
phases to prioritize the most at-risk populations, it’s uncertain how long it
will take to cover each of those targeted groups.
There
are 19.7 million adults working in health-care settings, 15.5 million of whom
have direct patient contact, according to new Kaiser research. Between nursing
homes and assisted-living facilities, there are about 2 million residents.
The
rollout of the Pfizer vaccine marks a complex undertaking by the federal
government and the states. Not only must the vaccine be stored at subzero
temperatures and be handled according to stringent protocols, but two doses,
three weeks apart, are also required.
While
Medicare — which insures much of the 65-and-older crowd — recently changed its rules so it can fully cover a fast-tracked
vaccine, individual states are tasked with actually distributing the
doses and identifying priority populations to
innoculate. All states are generally following the federal
recommendations for their first targeted populations, Kates said, adding that
some have an expanded priority list.
What [the advisory committee] has said in
deliberations is that they’re very likely to recommend that essential workers
will be next, then seniors and those with existing medical conditions. Jennifer Kates Senior Vice President At The Kaiser Family
Foundation
It’s
uncertain which groups the CDC will recommend for prioritization after the
initial round of coverage, or whether an earlier target of 20 million people
getting inoculated by the end of the year will come to fruition. However, the
agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices suggested last month that
the next priority populations would include people age 65 or older, critical
workers and individuals with underlying medical conditions that put them more
at risk for Covid complications.
“What
[the advisory committee] has said in deliberations is that they’re very likely
to recommend that essential workers will be next, and then seniors and those
with existing medical conditions,” Kates said.
If
those three populations are focused on after health-care workers and residents
of long-term-care facilities, it would be targeting an estimated 87 million
essential workers, 53 million-plus individuals age 65 or older and 100 million
with high-risk medical conditions, Kaiser notes in new research.
Availability
also depends on how many doses each state gets, which right now is based on
each state’s adult population. However, there aren’t equal shares of the
targeted groups in all states — for example, some have more health-care
workers, while others have more nursing home residents, Kates said.
“It’s
possible that some of the initial allocations will be a mismatch,” Kates
said.
The
pandemic has taken the lives of at least 299,191 individuals in the U.S., with
the case count above 16.25 million, according to the latest data from Johns
Hopkins University. Those figures account for roughly 19% of the world’s 1.6
million Covid deaths and 23% of the 72.3 million cases globally.
CDC data shows that
of about 262,000 Covid deaths it tallied through Dec. 9, more than 209,000 were
individuals age 65 or older. Overall, residents of long-term-care facilities
have accounted for about 40% of U.S. Covid deaths to date, according to the
CDC.
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