Who gets the COVID-19 vaccination first? Only 12 states follow CDC guidelines in order or priority

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that frontline healthcare professionals and residents of long-term care facilities constitute the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines.

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Next in line should be people over 75 and non-essential health care workers, including first responders, grocery workers, teachers and transportation workers, said the CDC.

The third batch: people aged 65-74 years and those aged 16-64 years with high-risk medical conditions and any essential workers not included in the first two batches.

But while all states are following the first batch of vaccines to the letter, not everyone is adhering to these guidelines after that.

In fact, only 14 states are adhering strictly to all CDC recommendations for those who should be included in the second-level priority group for vaccinations, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Most states include adults over 65 in this group.

And only 12 states (Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin) are adhering to all CDC recommendations at the three priority levels.

“In some cases, states are expanding and simplifying priority groups, says the report. “But in other cases, states are creating new and more complex groupings of priorities.”

This could “lead to greater difficulty in implementing vaccine distribution plans and make it more difficult to communicate these plans to the public,” the report concluded.

“Access to COVID-19 vaccines in the first few months of the US vaccination campaign can depend a lot on where you live,” he added.

• 10 states include additional rescuers in addition to those who work directly in health (Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Virginia and Wyoming).

• 4 states add elderly people to the first batch of vaccines, including people aged 65 and over (Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and West Virginia).

• In Utah, teachers and caregivers of children were among the first people to receive coronavirus vaccines, along with health professionals and long-term residents. In neighboring states, teachers and day care centers may have to wait several months to be vaccinated.

• Police officers and firefighters in 10 states – Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Virginia and Wyoming – are included in the first-tier vaccination group.

• Tennessee is including people who cannot live independently and people over 75 in their top-level priority group.

• In Massachusetts and New Jersey, incarcerated people are being given priority access.

The Kaiser Family Foundation or KFF is a non-profit organization, based in San Francisco, California.

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These disparities are just a few of the many examples of how different states are allocating initial doses of the PFizer PFE / BioNTech BNTX and Moderna MRNA vaccines.

“The recommendations were made with these objectives: to reduce deaths and serious illnesses to the maximum; preserve the functioning of society; [and] reduce the extra burden that COVID-19 is having on people who already face disparities, ”notes the CDC.

States are not required to follow the committee’s recommendations, but health experts are asking governors to follow ACIP’s recommendations in the future because it gives them a science-based framework to follow that can help end the pandemic more. quickly.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia are vaccinating health workers and long-term residents first, as recommended by ACIP. But at least 16 states are allowing other groups to be vaccinated simultaneously, according to an analysis published on Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit health institution.

“In some cases, states are expanding and simplifying priority groups. But in other cases, states are creating new and more complex groupings of priorities, ”wrote the Kaiser Family Foundation researchers.

“As with many decisions about how best to respond to the pandemic, there are tradeoffs here,” they added. “The identification of specific priority groups may more effectively target a limited supply of vaccines, but it can also lead to greater difficulty in implementing vaccine distribution plans and making it more difficult to communicate these plans to the public.