Who Gets the Coronavirus Vaccine First? The recommendations made on Tuesday, December 1 by the CDC (the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention) advisory committee about who should get the earliest doses of a COVID vaccine kick off a series of crucial decision points for the coming weeks, including how states make their own decisions about distributing a vaccine. Watch the following video Watch the following video (Links to an external site.) Though the advisory committee does not have final authority over who gets a coronavirus vaccine first, its recommendations are expected to carry weight with federal and local governments. The committee recommended that the first available doses of vaccine go to health care frontline workers and nursing home residents. This group is estimated to be around 24 million people, and it’s expected that two to five millions vaccine doses will be available every week for the first few weeks after the vaccine is prepared. While enough vaccine doses are expected to be ready by this spring for the general population, only 58 percent of respondents to recent polling said they’d be willing to take the coronavirus vaccine. Focus Questions: Coronavirus Vaccine and Skepticism How do you think authorities should decide who gets access to the coronavirus vaccine first? Who would you want to see have access to the vaccine as early as possible? Do you think there’s a better way to decide who gets the vaccine first than by allowing federal and state health authorities to decide? Why do you think so many Americans are skeptical about taking the vaccine?
