When can people plan on getting a coronavirus vaccine? For most people, the answer is: Not soon.
Healthy adults under the age of 65 and children may well have to wait until late spring or even the summer, depending on how many vaccines get approved, how quickly they can be manufactured and distributed, and how the debate goes over allocation. Here’s a look at what to expect from the coming coronavirus vaccination campaign. Who can get a vaccine and when? December Who might get vaccinated: Health care workers and nursing home residents December is a month for some big decisions. On Tuesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices meets to vote on who should be the very first to get vaccinated. That will almost certainly be 21 million frontline health care workers, support staff and 3 million residents of long-term care facilities who have been hardest hit by the pandemic. It will be easiest to vaccinate these groups — they’re already in institutional settings and the nursing home residents can get vaccinated at the same time their caregivers are being immunized. This decision is being made even before the US Food and Drug Administration has authorized a vaccine. The FDA has scheduled a meeting of its vaccine advisers — the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee — for December 10 to consider emergency use authorization for Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine, and another meeting on December 17 to discuss Moderna’s vaccine. The FDA has promised to consider the committee’s advice before deciding on any vaccine. The committee is made up of outside experts who do not have a stake in any of the companies making coronavirus vaccines and who are independent of the federal government. FDA officials say their decisions on the vaccines could come days to weeks after the meetings — it depends on what questions come up. But in the fastest scenario, the FDA could give emergency use authorization (EUA) as soon as next week for Pfizer’s vaccine, and the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed has promised to start delivering vaccines within 24 hours after that. Potentially, the same thing could happen the following week with Moderna’s vaccine. Pfizer and Moderna started making vaccine even while they were still testing it and between them plan to have 40 million doses for the US market by the end of December. Each vaccine needs two doses, given three to four weeks apart, so in theory, while 40 million doses could only fully vaccinate 20 million people, it could get 40 million people started. January Who might get vaccinated: More health care workers, other essential workers like emergency medical technicians, firefighters and police If two or more vaccines get approved by the FDA, January might be when discussion really starts on who can get vaccinated and when. Dr. Larry Corey of the University of Washington, who is heading up coronavirus vaccine clinical trials in the US, has said if both Pfizer and Modern get vaccines authorized, they could supply 50 million more doses in January and 60 million more in February and March. That adds up to 150 million doses — enough to fully vaccinate 75 million people. But there are way more people than that just in the groups tagged as priority groups in the US. The CDC estimates there are 21 million health care personnel,3 million long-term care residents,87 million essential workers,100 million adults with high risk medical conditions and 53 million others 65 and older.
