An advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted Tuesday in favor of a policy every American should be able to get behind:
Giving front-line health care workers and nursing home residents top priority for a COVID-19 vaccine.
CDC Director Robert Redfield is expected to approve the recommendations by the Advisory Council on Immunization Practices. States will have the final say on who gets a vaccine first, once a vaccine is approved and the federal government begins shipments. But, for once, they’re getting sound guidance from Washington.
Our country sorely needs a national strategy, based on science, to rein in this pandemic. With these recommendations, we might finally have the beginnings of one, just as the single most powerful tool against the disease — a safe, highly effective vaccine — is within reach.
Critical priorities
It’s essential that every state follows the CDC guidelines, as Illinois plans to do. With vaccines expected to be in extremely short supply for months, setting priorities for immunization is critical. And it makes perfect sense that front-line workers in health care settings, followed by those who live in nursing homes, should be at the top of the list.
We owe it to our nation’s 21 million health care workers, which includes doctors, nurses, technicians, therapists, emergency services personnel, clerical workers, janitors and thousands of others in related health and health support professions. Every one of those workers has put his or her health in jeopardy to protect the rest of us.
More than 230,000 health care workers have contracted COVID-19 and, as of late November, 822 have died.
More hospitals are becoming overwhelmed as the pandemic surges, running short on beds and manpower. Those numbers are likely to grow worse this month as the nation faces a post-Thanksgiving surge on top of the surge, as Dr. Anthony Fauci warned earlier this week.
To the rescue of nursing homes
We owe it, as well, to those living in nursing homes that, to our national shame and horror, became hotspots for the deadly disease early on. Residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities account for just 1% of the population nationwide — 3 million people — but 8% of coronavirus cases and a shocking 40% of deaths,
Those numbers, too, are likely to worsen. In 20 states experiencing the worst of the surge, new coronavirus cases in nursing homes have skyrocketed from 1,083 a week in May to 4,274 a week in October. Weekly deaths more than doubled from 318 to 699. New cases among staff soared from 855 a week to 4,050 a week.
America cannot combat this virus without a national strategy for distributing a vaccine, starting with those most at risk of severe illness or death.
Our nation has never had a coordinated federal strategy, of any sort, against COVID-19. No strategy on testing. No federal guidelines on when or how to restrict or close businesses. No coordination on buying and distributing personal protective equipment. No national effort to promote mask-wearing.
Instead, the Trump administration left it to the states to figure it all out on their own — and, often, to compete among themselves to buy protective equipment, driving up prices — with predictable results. Many states have failed miserably at stopping the virus.
This time around, states must follow sensible, science-based recommendations to distribute a vaccine. Doing so will be a huge practical and symbolic step toward ending this pandemic.
Sensible. Science-based. Coordinated. Responsible. Our nation has had none of that under a Trump administration.
We must have it, moving forward.
Friday deadline
By Friday, states must submit their vaccine distribution plans to the federal government, so shipments of the first approved vaccine can begin.
Illinois’ distribution plan will follow the CDC guidelines, “with an equity lens” that also takes into account the disparate impact of the virus on communities of color and in poorer areas of the state, a spokeswoman for Gov. J.B. Pritzker told us.
Pritzker said Tuesday that Illinois expects its first vaccine shipment to include 109,000 doses, enough for just 54,500 people at two required doses each.
Soon after its Dec. 10 meeting, the Food and Drug Administration could grant emergency authorization to the vaccine developed by pharmaceutical firm Pfizer. A second vaccine developed by Moderna is also in the FDA approval pipeline.
Vaccines are on the way, but most of us have months to wait before we can get the shots.
We cannot say this often enough: Get the shot. If the treatment regimen requires, get the two shots.
And until then, bear with the drudgery and follow the rules to curb the spread of the virus.
There’s a vaccine coming, even multiple vaccines. We see a light at the end of the tunnel.
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