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(Journalist)
– A new awareness of the role obesity plays in putting people at risk for serious illness from COVID-19 could affect decisions about the order in which Americans are vaccinated. “Obesity has been ignored for a very long time and overweight has been completely ignored,” said a researcher from the University of North Carolina. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now looking at both factors, he said. On Tuesday, a group of CDC advisers will discuss which groups the vaccine will go to first, the Washington post reports. The emergency meeting was called so that recommendations on priorities could be made public before the Food and Drug Administration made a decision on emergency vaccine clearance. “It’s not something that is rushed,” the panel chairman said, per CNN. “We have already discussed groups within the first level. We just review the data and vote primarily on the top level group.”
The CDC has already decided that the first group should include frontline health care providers and support workers. Other priority groups are workers in critical and critical industries, the elderly and people with specific disorders, such as severe obesity. An analysis of 75 studies on the relationship between body mass index and COVID-19 found that obese people were 113% more likely to be hospitalized and 48% more likely to die from the disease. Britain, which has addressed the issue of obesity, has decided to prioritize vaccines for those with a body mass index above 40. About 42% of Americans are considered obese, while the rate in Great Britain is 28%. The reason the priorities are set is that “there will not be enough vaccine for everyone in the first batch,” said the panel chair. “It is important for the public to understand that we are dealing with particular groups of individuals – not the general public.” (Read more stories about obesity.)
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