COVID-19 vaccine may not work on nursing home patients



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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (ACIP) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted on Tuesday that healthcare workers and nursing home residents should be the first to receive COVID-19 vaccines once they are approved.

Pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer have applied to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization for their vaccines, so distribution can begin in a few weeks.

But according to the Los Angeles Times, although the 3 million Americans who live in long-term healthcare facilities received the first injections, some experts say giving the vaccine to frail and elderly people can be dangerous. Historically, this aging population has not responded well to the flu vaccine, for example, and the side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine may be more than they can handle.

Nursing homes have already been in the spotlight for their dismal record during the coronavirus pandemic. More than 100,000 residents and employees of nursing homes and long-term care facilities have died, representing about 40% of the total number of deaths in the United States, according to November statistics. It was the massive death rate that likely drove nursing home residents to the top of the class in vaccine priority, said Dr Helen Talbot, of the Vanderbilt University health policy department. She was one of 14 ACIP CDC members and the only one to vote against prioritizing long-term care residents.

“If you’re in a facility and you can’t leave, you’re not bringing a virus into that facility,” Talbot said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It’s only the people who work there who bring these viruses with them – from church, home, restaurants, grocery stores.”

Talbot said she would prefer to focus on improving care for the elderly in nursing homes by making sure the workers who feed, bathe and protect them are vaccinated. Experts point out that 40% of nursing home workers are blacks and Latin Americans who have been hit hardest by COVID-19. Protecting these workers would indirectly help the residents they care for, Talbot said.

Dr Paul Hunter, ACIP member and family medicine specialist at the University of Wisconsin, said it would be effective to have residents and staff vaccinated. Other experts have warned that since older people are not volunteers in clinical trials, we don’t know if the vaccine will be as effective for them as it was for more than 90% of the general trial population. And we also don’t know if the side effects will lead to more medical problems, requiring medical examinations, or even death.

ACIP had no choice but to give this hard-hit population a chance to see if the COVID-19 vaccine works, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“It won’t necessarily be the home run that we want,” said Dr Talbot. “But it will probably be a good, solid foundation.”

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