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CDC/NYS-COVID Vaccine Expands to <65 & Immunocompromised
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CDC expands Covid vaccination guidelines to everyone 65 and older
Tue, Jan 12 202
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/12/covid-vaccine-trump-administration-to-expand-eligibility-to-everyone-65-and-older.html
Key Points
•The Trump administration is issuing new guidelines that expand coronavirus vaccine eligibility to everyone 65 years old and above, a senior administration official said.
•States' focus on vaccinating health-care workers and nursing homes has created a bottleneck, the official said.
"The states are being told immediately they need to expand to 65-plus as well as those under 65 with comorbid conditions," the official said.
"We are going to have clear guidance from the CDC to governors that they should vaccinate people 65 and above and anyone below 64 who has a chronic medical condition," he said.
The administration will also stop holding back millions of doses reserved for the second round of shots of Pfizer and Moderna's two-dose vaccines, the official said, adding they released doses that had been held in reserve on Sunday.
"States should not be waiting to complete phase 1a prioritization before proceeding to broader categories of eligibility," Azar said Tuesday, explaining the new guidance. "Think of it like boarding an airplane. You might have a sequential order in which you board people. But you don't wait 'til literally every person from a group is boarded before moving on to the next."
Some 53 million Americans who are 65 and older and 110 million people between 16 and 64 with comorbid conditions will now be eligible to receive the vaccine if every state adopts the guidelines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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New York state will open Covid vaccinations to everyone 65 and over, Gov. Cuomo says, and immunocompromised
Tue, Jan 12 2021
Key Points
•New York will open up Covid vaccine eligibility to everyone 65 and older as well as younger people who are immunocompromised, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday.
•His announcement is in line with forthcoming updated guidance from the CDC on who should be eligible to receive the vaccine.
•But Cuomo also criticized the move, saying the state will not be able to meet the demand for vaccinations.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/12/cuomo-says-new-york-will-accept-new-federal-guidance-opening-covid-vaccine-eligibility-to-65.html
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Azar, Trump administration will no longer hold back second shots, recommend 65 and older get COVID vaccine
January 12, 2021
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/azar-trump-administration-longer-hold-back-shots-recommend/story?id=75198254
The Trump administration will start releasing more doses of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to states immediate instead of holding back the second dose, as Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar says states should expand vaccinations to everyone age 65 and older in an effort to get the vaccine to more people immediately.
President-Elect Biden has called for similar changes to the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Biden is expected to announce more details about his plans later this week.
Azar said the changes move the country to the next phase of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, saying the administration is confident in the supply from manufacturers and there have already been more doses sent to states than health care workers and people in long term care facilities eligible for the first phase of doses.
"This is just a staging, moving to the next phase on the vaccine program," Azar said. "We've had so much success with quality and predictable manufacturing and almost flawless distribution of the vaccine, but we have seen now that the administration in the states has been too narrowly focused," he said on "Good Morning America."
He went on to say that states should not be waiting until all health care workers and long term care residents in Phase 1a are vaccinated to move on to other vulnerable populations, comparing it to not waiting until all members of a group are boarded to continue boarding an airplane. Azar said it will be easier to manage eligibility based on age as vaccinations expand to pharmacies and more sites.
The changes come amid public frustration about the pace of vaccinations and confusion about the process of who is eligible and limited number of appointments available to be vaccinated. It will ultimately be up to governors and state and local officials to decide who is eligible to receive the vaccine in their state based on if they have enough supply of vaccine doses to meet demand and vaccinate the most vulnerable populations and essential workers.
Azar said he would rather have people working to get appointments for vaccination than vaccines sitting in freezers unused.
Experts say it is critically important to ramp up vaccinations to protect more Americans amid record high numbers of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, and new, possibly more contagious variants of the virus that causes the disease detected in the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield said it's especially important to vaccinate people vulnerable to severe illness from COVID-19 as hospitals around the country continue to be overwhelmed.
"We believe it's critically important at this time to get those vulnerable people as quickly as we can" to maintain hospital resilience, Redfield said during a briefing with Operation Warp Speed.
Azar said the administration is willing to "deploy teams to help states doing mass vaccination efforts if they wish to do so," saying the distribution has been too centered around hospitals and more mass vaccination sites could help speed things up.
Federal officials are not recommending a change in how the COVID-19 vaccines are administered, including that both the Pfizer and Moderna and vaccines require two doses administered 21 or 28 days after the first. The Food and Drug Administration has said there is not evidence to support changing that regimen and that it is important everyone vaccinated receives the second dose of the same vaccine on time to ensure they remain effective.
Biden said last week he wants to set up more federal vaccination sites or mobile clinics to reach more rural areas. HHS and Operation Warp Speed are also moving up the timeline to get more doses of the vaccine to local pharmacies and health clinics.
The pace of vaccinations has increased in recent weeks - almost 9 million people have received their first dose according to CDC data - but experts say the pace needs to speed up even more and that state and local jurisdictions need more resources and support to resolve the bottleneck.
If governors follow federal officials' calls to expand eligibility millions more people could be vaccinated earlier than anticipated. The CDC says there are 21 million people over the age of 75 in the country and 32 million people between the age of 65 and 74. 56% of adults also have a medical condition that could make them eligible to receive the vaccine immediately under the new recommendations regardless of age, including cancer, COPD, heart conditions, obesity, diabetes, or a compromised immune system.
As states speed up who is eligible to receive the vaccine, which many have already done, they'll like see a tidal wave of demand from people trying to book a limited number of slots for the doses of vaccine available to be given out on a day to day basis. Some experts say making more doses of the vaccine available won't resolve all the problems in the rollout if local efforts to administer the vaccine don't get more support and staff to carry it out.
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