(Reuters) – An advisory group at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday recommended that essential front-line workers and people 75 and older should be the next to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 13 to 1 to recommend 30 million essential front-line workers, which include first aid, teachers, food and agriculture, manufacturing, the U.S. postal service, public transportation, and grocery workers. for vaccines.
In total, this measure would mean that 51 million people could be inoculated in the next round. However, it was not clear when the next round would begin.
Around 200 million people, including non-front-line workers, such as those in the media, finance, energy and IT and communication industries, people in the 65-74 age group and people 16- to 64-year-olds with high-risk conditions should be in the next round, the panel recommends.
The group had already recommended that front-line health workers and residents of nursing homes be the priority groups.
Coronavirus mortality rates are highest in older adults, with a population aged 75 and over representing 25% of hospitalizations associated with COVID-19, according to a working group set up by the vaccine distribution advisory group.
Citing the limited availability of doses, the working group divided essential workers into front-line and front-line workers.
States, which are the ones distributing traits to their residents, will use the ACIP guidelines to guide their decisions on how to allocate doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc while supplies are scarce.
States have ample discretion over how to classify essential workers, and more than 20 large industries have pressured authorities to put their workers at the forefront of the line, according to a Reuters analysis.
Although so far the supply of vaccines has been limited, federal authorities have said production will increase in the coming months. U.S. Operation Warp Speed officials have said they will distribute enough doses for 100 million Americans to be vaccinated by the end of February.
Federal authorities began shipping the first 2.9 million doses of the Pfizer Inc vaccine on December 13th. They expect to distribute an additional 2 million doses this week, as well as 5.9 million doses of Moderna Inc.’s vaccine.
Even after these doses are distributed, more than half of the nation’s 21 million health workers and 3 million residents will need to be vaccinated.
Reports of Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; Edited by Daniel Wallis, Lisa Shumaker and Sonya Hepinstall