Many states prioritize COVID-19 vaccines for people over 75, and then move on to those over 65, but they should not retire according to age, an advisory committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.
The approach is inherently unfair to minorities, committee members said, because they have a lower life expectancy and that people of color at younger ages than white Americans die from COVID-19 – even in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
“I am not in favor of any part of an age fitness group under 65,” he said. Dr. José Romero, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Arkansas Medical School of Little Rock and chair of the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee.
The committee does not agree with the plans in some countries to require people to provide proof that they have two medical conditions on a predetermined list before they can be vaccinated.
People with two medical conditions that are well under control may have a lower risk of severe COVID-19 than those with one out of control or with a less common disease that is not frequent enough.
Although type 2 diabetes, for example, is considered the highest risk risk, type 1 is not always, although people with this less common, autoimmune version run the same risk, he said. Dr. Katherine Poehling, a professor of pediatrics at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Yes, there will be people who lie about their medical conditions, admit Dr. Helen Talbot, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. “There’s always someone who finds a way to cheat.”
But it’s better to let in some scammers than to deny people who really need it the vaccine, she said.
The other category of people to be prioritized, committee members said, are those who care about others who may not be vaccinated.
Dr. Grace Lee, a professor of infectious childhood diseases at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California, mentions the parents of children who have received stem cell transplants.
“I am naturally important in protecting those individuals in the absence of a high-risk medical condition, in part because we cannot vaccinate young children at this time,” she said.
Each state makes its own vaccination plan, so there are many mixed messages about who should be prioritized in the next few months, as the provision of vaccines remains strict, committee members said.
For this reason, committee members said that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was approved over the weekend, should be added to the general pool of available vaccines, rather than targeting a specific group or population.
They emphasize their commitment to the equitable distribution of vaccines, even if they are distributed to as many people as possible.
“I feel very challenged to see that we continue to maintain equity as a focal point for the implementation of the COVID-19 vaccination program,” Lee said.
Many vaccine distribution facilities are so concerned that they have to get exactly the right people vaccinated, that they turn away too much, she continued.
“Since we all want to vaccinate anyway, except for the worst situations, whether I’m correcting a high-risk condition A versus B, I think it’s less important than just making sure we’re granted access,” he said. she said. said.
About 50 million Americans have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. By By the end of this month, Pfizer-BioNTech will have provided a total of 120 million doses of its vaccine, enough to vaccinate 60 million people; Modern would have provided 100 million doses to vaccinate 50 million people; and J&J will provide 20 million doses of its single-vaccine. That’s enough to cover more than half of the 210 million adults in the US.
In its second four-hour meeting in two days, the committee considered extending the recommended period between the two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines.
Some suggested that a delay would allow more vaccine to be distributed, but committee members said they did not have enough information to delay the second dose of any vaccine.
There were more mixed opinions on whether people with symptomatic COVID-19 needed both doses of the two-dose vaccines.
Basic immunology suggests that the disease will serve as a primary dose and the first shot as a booster, Talbot said. “I don’t need any more information. We all took immunology,” she said.
Others have raised questions about whether the risks of vaccination for people with COVID-19 will outweigh the benefits, especially with a second chance. CDC officials said there was not enough information to answer the question.
Implementing such a policy will be challenging because it is not clear how long protection will last and how sick someone must be to develop adequate natural protection.
Contact Karen Weintraub at kweintraub @ usatoday.
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This article originally appeared in the US TODAY: Should States Prioritize Vaccination by Age? Some experts say no