The answer to the title question is probably going to be “no” for the vast majority of you, but somebody has to do it I suppose. The first of the new vaccines from Moderna are set to be administered today and the media is once again circling all of the potential recipients. But even with both those doses and the ones that continue to roll out from Pfizer making their way across the country, there still won’t be anywhere near enough to go around for all of the people expected to sign up for a shot. So how are we to determine who gets to go first, assuming your initials aren’t AOC? That’s where the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices comes in. That’s the panel that decided the first doses should go to front-line medical workers and nursing home residents. Yesterday they took a vote to determine who should be next in line. The winners (if you consider this to be “winning”) probably won’t come as too much of a surprise. (Associated Press)
A federal advisory panel recommended Sunday that people 75 and older and essential workers like firefighters, teachers and grocery store workers should be next in line for COVID-19 shots, while a second vaccine began rolling out to hospitals as the nation works to get the coronavirus pandemic under control.
The two developments came amid a vaccination program that began only in the last week and has given initial shots to about 556,000 Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and Germany’s BioNTech already is being distributed, and regulators last week gave approval to the one from Moderna Inc. that began shipping Sunday.
With a couple of exceptions, I’m pretty much okay with these selections, though I still have a couple of questions. I do have to wonder if we aren’t rushing things with the people who are 75 years of age and older. They are clearly some of the people at the greatest risk for a bad outcome if they contract COVID because more of them tend to have other underlying conditions. But we’ve now seen multiple instances of people having severe allergic reactions to these vaccines shortly after receiving them. Wouldn’t people in this category also be among the most likely to not survive a sudden onset of anaphylactic shock? Granted, they would probably be in some sort of hospital or medical center when it happened, so that improves their odds considerably, but I’d be nervous about it. Then again, I’m not a doctor so what do I know?