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A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory committee is due to vote on priority designation for COVID-19 vaccines on Tuesday afternoon, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prepares for review two vaccine candidates this month in an emergency. use the authorization.
Tuesday’s meeting will outline vaccine delivery priorities, which are expected to place healthcare workers, nursing home staff and residents high on the list. But some experts also believe that vaccinating minority communities, which have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, should also be a priority.
It remains to be seen, however, how distribution will work at the local level and whether there will be enough doses to immunize health workers and the elderly.
Dr Joshua Lesko, an emergency physician at Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, wrote on Monday: “The planned doses (40 million) … are not sufficient to adequately cover even these two groups.
The doses are expected to come from Moderna (MRNA) and the duo Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX), which have been subject to emergency use authorization.
But the CDC’s vote on Tuesday focuses on the very first group, dubbed Phase 1a, which may only include health workers, according to comments from previous meetings.
The need for a vaccine for health workers has intensified in recent weeks, as the country anticipates more pressure on hospitals and health facilities after Thanksgiving. Hospitalizations have already risen overall, even as daily numbers decline slightly due to tighter patient admission thresholds. On Tuesday, nearly 100,000 people were hospitalized.
New administration
Experts are also focusing on the next administration change, as President-elect Joe Biden will be in office when the majority of vaccines are distributed.
“It would make sense for Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board to be involved in these decisions, but I doubt the level of cooperation will be offered by the outgoing administration – which is unfortunate,” said Dr Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston.
Meanwhile, as President Donald Trump faces the end of his government, what will happen to Operation Warp Speed and its senior officials remains a question. But White House coronavirus adviser Dr Scott Atlas, resigned Monday.
The resignation of the controversial adviser, whom some considered unqualified for the post, is likely to provide relief to members of the White House COVID-19 task force. Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has repeatedly said he disagrees with Atlas and his views.
Most notably, Atlas pushed the idea of herd immunity, which allows Americans to get sick and avoid mitigation tactics to promote greater natural immunity to the virus.
Dr Ashish Jha, Dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, said on twitter, “Few people (are) as responsible for how bad things are as Scott. His tenure on the federal payroll (is) really horrible.
Jha added that Atlas had released the wrong data and made several false statements about the virus because he had “found a buyer” at Trump. Atlas, however, said it relies on data and has expert support from the largest institutions.
“I have always relied on the latest scientific data and evidence … These views were in line with those of many of the world’s leading epidemiologists and medical scientists,” Atlas said. “I cannot think of a time when the safeguard of science and the scientific debate are more urgent.”
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