COVID-19 Vaccine News

On Dec. 20, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or ACIP released their recommendations on the prioritization of vaccine distribution after long-term care patients and frontline health care workers.  

Here is the breakdown of the two groups as recommended by ACIP:

• Phase 1b Group (49 million people).  This group includes police, firefighters, teachers and school personnel; food and agriculture workers; manufacturing workers; corrections workers; U.S. Postal Service workers; public transit and grocery store workers.  This group also includes 19 million seniors 75 years old or older.

• Phase 1c Group (129 million people).  This group includes the remaining seniors, 65-74 (28 million people), and other “essential workers” (20 million people) in Transportation and Logistics, Food Service, Shelter & Housing (including construction), Finance, IT & Communication, Energy, Media Legal, Public Safety (Engineers), Water & Wastewater.   This group also includes people between the ages of 16-64 with high-risk conditions (81 million people).

The ACIP panel recommendations are non binding. State governments have the flexibility to prioritize decisions locally — but they have so far followed the ACIP recommendations

Details: ACIP COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations