An advisory committee from the Centers for Disease Control recommended Sunday that the next two groups of Americans receiving the COVID-19 vaccine be workers over the age of 75 and front-line workers, including police, firefighters, teachers and health workers. groceries.
The first people to receive the vaccine, known as phase 1A, are health professionals and long-term residents of health centers, such as nursing homes. Sunday’s recommendations stated who believes the advisory group should be prioritized in the next two phases of vaccine deployment. The CDC group recommended that Phase 1B include U.S. workers age 75 and older and front-line. After that, Phase 1C should cover Americans ages 65 to 74, people ages 16 to 64 with high-risk medical problems and other essential workers, the CDC confirmed to CBS News on Sunday.
The CDC defines front-line essential workers as “workers who are in sectors essential to the functioning of society and have a substantially higher risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2.” This group includes first aid workers, corrections workers, U.S. postal service workers, those working in education, public transportation workers, grocery store workers, and those working in manufacturing, the food and agriculture. According to the CDC, approximately 30 million Americans belong to this group.
Other key workers – who would enter Phase 1C if the CDC group’s recommendations are followed – include those working in food, transportation and logistics services, finance, energy, media, construction, IT and communications, public safety and the legal sector. This group consists of about 57 million people.
The first Americans began receiving the COVID-19 vaccine on December 14th. The CDC said Sunday that more than 500,000 doses of the nearly 3 million doses of the vaccine distributed have been administered. The doses distributed and administered so far are the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The Food and Drug Administration approved on Friday a second vaccine, manufactured by Moderna, for distribution, with the initial batches of the vaccine ready Sunday to be shipped.
New York Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said Sunday that the state, which was hardest hit at the start of the pandemic, had received all the batches of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine it hopes to receive. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned last week that the vaccine is the “light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s a long tunnel.”