cBiden will leave decision about who gets the coronavirus vaccine first up to public health experts and scientists, his COVID-19 advisor says

6 min readNov 29, 2020

A photo illustration show a syringe. Argentina was selected to test a vaccine against COVID-19, it is estimated that the clinical phases will begin in August. Carol Smiljan/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Last week, Pfizer and BioNTech filed for emergency authorization of their coronavirus vaccine with the Food and Drug Administration.
Once a vaccine is authorized, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will go through the information on the vaccine and vote on whether to “recommend the vaccine and, if so, who should receive it.”
Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, told CNN on Friday that Biden “is leaving it to the public health experts and scientists to figure out how best to allocate the limited supply first.”

Related: The world is celebrating Biden’s victory over Trump

Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, told CNN on Friday that public health experts and scientists will decide who among the groups that will be prioritized will get it first when a limited supply of vaccine is available.

“That’s where it gets a bit more political and, frankly, this is where the President-elect is leaving it to the public health experts and scientists to figure out how best to allocate the limited supply first,” Gounder told CNN.

Last week, Pfizer and BioNTech filed for emergency authorization of their coronavirus vaccine with the Food and Drug Administration. Pfizer announced that its vaccine had a 95% efficacy rate in its final-stage clinical trials.

Pfizer has applied for emergency authorization and Moderna, which also reported a 95% efficacy rate, is expected to do the same by the end of the month, Business Insider’s Aria Bendix reported.

Once a vaccine is authorized, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will go through the information on the vaccine and vote on whether to “recommend the vaccine and, if so, who should receive it,” according to the committee.

According to the ACIP, healthcare personnel, essential workers, people at high-risk, and senior citizens at the age of 65 or older are the four groups the committee is “possibly” recommending to get the vaccine early if supply is limited.

Public health experts have suggested a variety of frameworks as to who should get the vaccine first.

According to a report by public health experts at Johns Hopkins University based on data available in August, “Those most essential in sustaining the ongoing COVID-19 response,” “those at greatest risk of severe illness and death, and their caregivers,” and “those most essential to maintaining core societal functions” are the group so individuals recommended for priority access for the vaccine.

In the run-up to the elections, the US public was steadily losing confidence in Trump’s handling of the virus. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after Trump’s infection and brief hospitalisation found 59 percent of Americans disapproved of his response.

Trump repeatedly dismissed the severity of the pandemic, saying the virus would disappear on its own. He chided Democrat rival Biden for wearing a protective mask.

Kamala Devi Harris, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, is to become the highest-ranking woman in the 244-year existence of the United States. She’s been welcomed by women, by black activists and by a chorus of liberal voices — but she comes to the job after having publicly savaged Joe Biden in the first Democrat TV debate, and with a confused reputation from her time as California attorney general.

Kamala Harris was among the gang of Democratic contenders who slugged it out in the first of the party’s televised debates, back in June, 2019. In the course of that frequently stormy discussion, Harris accused Biden of having sided with racial segregationists in the 1970s by opposing legislation on “bussing”, the controversial use of federal transport to bring black kids to white schools.

Biden, when he was a Delaware Senator in 1975, did indeed describe bussing as “asinine”. In the 2019 debate, Harris told the man who will become her boss next January that he had been wrong to oppose the system that gave her the start of an education that had made her career possible. “I was the girl on the bus,” she said. Biden ran out of time before he could answer.

cBiden will leave decision about who gets the coronavirus vaccine first up to public health experts and scientists, his COVID-19 advisor says

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