A COVID-19 vaccine could be right around the corner—but now, we face the challenge of allocation and distribution. On this week’s episode of the I AM BIO Podcast, BIO’s VP for Infectious Diseases Phyllis Arthur spoke with Dr. Helene Gayle, President and CEO of The Chicago Community Trust, about who should get vaccinated first and why.
To catch you up: Both Moderna and Pfizer announced that their vaccine candidates show 95% efficacy with no serious safety concerns—including for the elderly and minority subjects, who face greater risk in this pandemic.
“This is the reassurance we’d hoped for that the vaccine would protect the vulnerable—not just the healthy,” said BIO’s Phyllis Arthur.
Now, the work begins to determine who should be vaccinated first and why. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently released Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine, a report offering recommendations on how to allocate and distribute a vaccine to maximize societal benefit and mitigate health inequities.
“The goal is to have the whole population or as much of the whole population as possible vaccinated,” said Dr. Helene Gayle, one of the report's authors. “But we know that in the beginning there will be scarcity, and with scarcity you have to make tough decisions.”
The report suggests distributing the vaccine in four phases:
- frontline health workers, first responders, seniors in nursing homes, and people with high-risk comorbidities
- other seniors, teachers, people with less risky but still significant comorbidities, and people in prisons, group homes, and shelters
- children and young adults
- healthy adults
This will also capture racial/ethnic inequities causing people of color to face higher risk of infection and death. “It’s not about their race—it’s the impact of race and racism in our society that has put people in the categories and put people at risk,” continued Dr. Gayle. “We really try to focus on what are the underlying reasons why people are at risk.”
Building trust in the science is key, too. “It’s one thing to have a vaccine, it’s another thing to have people vaccinated,” concluded Dr. Gayle. “Building trust and rebuilding trust is going to be a huge part of that.”
Listen to the whole thing to learn more about Dr. Gayle’s path to a public health career, her work on the ground in Chicago to make sure the economically fragile aren’t left behind in the pandemic response, and the difference between equity and equality.
Get the episode at www.bio.org/podcast or wherever you get your podcast fix, including Apple, Google, or Spotify.
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