(Reuters) – An advisory group at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday recommended that key frontline workers and people aged 75 and over be next in line to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 13 to 1 to recommend 30 million key frontline workers, including first responders, teachers, food and agriculture, manufacturing, U.S. postal services, public transportation and grocery store workers should be the next priority for vaccines.
In total, this move would make 51 million people eligible to be inoculated in the next round. However, it was not clear immediately when the next round will begin.
Approximately 200 million people, including non-frontal workers, such as those in the media, finance, energy and IT and communications industries, people in the age group 65-74 and those aged 16 to 64 with conditions High risk should be in the next round, the panel recommended.
The group has already recommended that primary care employees and nursing home residents be the first priority groups.
Coronavirus mortality rates are highest in older adults, with the population aged 75 and over accounting for 25% of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations, according to a working group set up by the vaccine distribution advisory group.
Citing limited dose availability, the working group decomposed essential workers into front and non-front workers.
States, which distribute photos to their residents, will use the ACIP guidelines to guide decisions on how to allocate doses of COVID-19 Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc vaccines, while reserves are scarce.
States have wide discretion over how to classify essential workers, and more than 20 major industries have put pressure on authorities to get their workers to the forefront, a Reuters analysis found.
While the supply of vaccines has been limited so far, federal authorities have said production will increase in the coming months. Officials for US Operation Warp Speed have said they will distribute enough doses for 100 million Americans to be vaccinated by the end of February.
Federal authorities began delivering the first 2.9 million doses of Pfizer Inc. vaccine on December 13th. Another 2 million doses are expected to be distributed this week, as well as 5.9 million doses of Moderna Inc. vaccine.
Even after these doses are distributed, more than half of the country’s 21 million health workers and 3 million nursing home residents will still need to be vaccinated.
Report by Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Lisa Shumaker and Sonya Hepinstall