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U.S. asked to prioritize frontline essential workers as distribution of Moderna shots begins

Published 12/20/2020, 06:10 AM
Updated 12/20/2020, 05:36 PM
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A small shopping basket filled with vials labelled "COVID-19 - Coronavirus Vaccine" and a medical syringe are placed on a Moderna logo

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A small shopping basket filled with vials labelled "COVID-19 - Coronavirus Vaccine" and a medical syringe are placed on a Moderna logo

By Rajesh Kumar Singh and Carl O'Donnell

(Reuters) - An advisory panel on Sunday recommended U.S. frontline essential workers and people 75 and older should be next in line to get inoculated as the distribution of Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) Inc's vaccine, the second approved coronavirus vaccine, began across the country.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 13 to 1 to recommend 30 million frontline essential workers, which include first responders, teachers, food and agriculture, manufacturing, U.S. Postal Service, public transit, and grocery store workers, have the next priority for the vaccines.

In all, the move would make 51 million people eligible to get inoculated in the next round. It was not immediately clear when the next round would begin.

About 200 million people including non-frontline workers such as those in media, finance, energy and IT and communication industries, persons in the 65-74 age group, and those aged 16-64 years with high-risk conditions should be in the ensuing round, the panel recommended.

States, which are the ones distributing shots to their residents, will use the advisory panel's guidelines to decide on how to allocate the vaccines while supplies are scarce.

Inoculation against the disease is key to safely reopening large parts of the economy and reducing the risks of illness at crowded meatpacking plants, factories and warehouses. However, confusion has broken out over who exactly is considered essential during a pandemic.

Ahead of the vote, many companies and industry groups had been lobbying to get their U.S. workers in line to receive the vaccines immediately after healthcare professionals and long-term care facility residents.

Meanwhile, trucks of FedEx Corp (NYSE:FDX) and United Parcel Service Inc (NYSE:UPS) started picking up the doses from warehouses for deliveries to hospitals and other sites.

Vials of Moderna's vaccine were filled in pharmaceutical services provider Catalent (NYSE:CTLT) Inc's facility in Bloomington, Indiana. Distributor McKesson Corp (NYSE:MCK) is shipping doses from facilities in places including Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis, Tennessee - close to air hubs for UPS and FedEx.

Both FedEx and UPS said the shipments were running smoothly and everything was going exactly as planned.

Separately, U.S. health officials are monitoring the new strain of COVID-19 emerging in the United Kingdom, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said on Sunday, adding that any mutation shows people must keep protecting themselves from the novel coronavirus while awaiting vaccination.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and scientists announced on Saturday that the new virus strain had led to spiraling infection numbers, tightening the COVID-19 restrictions for London and nearby areas and disrupting the Christmas holiday plans of millions of people.

The variant, which officials say is up to 70% more transmissible than the original, has prompted concerns about a wider spread. Several European countries, including Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands, said they were taking measures to prevent people arriving from Britain, including bans on flights and trains.

The distribution of Moderna's vaccine to more than 3,700 locations in the United States will vastly widen the rollout started last week by Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE) and German partner BioNTech SE (NASDAQ:BNTX).

U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program head Moncef Slaoui said it was most likely the first Moderna vaccine shot, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, would be given on Monday morning.

"We look forward to the vaccine. It's going to be slightly easier to distribute because it doesn't require as low (a) temperature as Pfizer," Slaoui said on CNN.

The U.S. government plans to deliver 5.9 million Moderna shots and 2 million Pfizer shots this week.

Data from CDC shows 2.84 million doses have been distributed and 556,208 shots administered thus far.

The start of delivery for the Moderna vaccine will significantly widen availability of COVID-19 vaccines as U.S. deaths caused by the respiratory disease have reached more than 316,000 in the 11 months since the first documented U.S. cases. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/34pvUyi)

Some states are choosing to use Moderna's shots for harder-to-reach rural areas because they can be stored for 30 days in standard-temperature refrigerators. Pfizer's must be shipped and stored at minus 70 Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit) and can be held for only five days at standard refrigerator temperatures.

© Reuters. UPS package handlers unload boxes of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine as it arrives at UPS Worldport in Louisville

Initial doses were given to health professionals. Programs by pharmacies Walgreens and CVS to distribute the Pfizer vaccine to long-term care facilities are expected to start on Monday.

Latest comments

Speaking front lines, I have not heard about vaccinating our Military personnel.
obviously people on Wall Street should be next in line for the vaccine
Impacts to gold?
we all new that they would either focus on the ineffectiveness of vaccines or a new strain that would render vaccines ineffective. meanwhile number of people in serious condition keeps lowering and lowering. And this is during flu season (no one has the flu anymore by the way, which is interesting to say the least). c19study.com reveals we could get out of covid whenever we wish.
You clearly have no clue how the world works. Just a little short investigation on how is behind that journal will tell you about political affiliations and who is who. I don't care about corrupt journals.
Really? A website pushing Hydroxychloroquine? You're buying into some crazy propaganda that is published by people who want to make money on the pandemic by marketing HCQ as a miracle cure with unproven results. You really need to work on your media literacy.
This is one of the most ignorant posts i've seen on this forum. You clearly have no post grad studies or even basic academic college to even be able to read what is on that website, otherwise you couldnt even type 10% of the rubbish you just typed there. If you have nothing constructive to add please remain silent and let the adults take care of the world.
The media, among others, said it couldn’t be done before the end of the year. Trump was criticized, and I believe “fact checked” for saying it could.
Wrong. What has been said, what has been done to president Trump is of the utmost important and much more important than delivering vaccines. It is treason and compromising of national security. Highly criminal. And not talking about how propaganda is legal in the US.
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