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CDC meets Tuesday to decide who will get COVID-19 vaccine first

On Tuesday, a CDC panel will meet to discuss how the coronavirus vaccine will be distributed and who will get it first.

Posted Updated

By
Brett Knese
, WRAL multimedia journalist
On Tuesday, a panel from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet to discuss how the coronavirus vaccine will be distributed and who will get it first.

The 2 p.m. virtual meeting will not be available to the public, but Americans can expect to hear some highlights soon after.

So far, experts have proposed giving the vaccine to health workers first, though high priority also may be given to workers in essential industries, people with certain medical conditions and people age 65 and older.

Three North Carolina doctors are members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the board involved in the decision, including Dr. Katherine A. Poehling from Wake Forest School of Medicine, Dr. Thevy S. Chai from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Dr. Kenneth Schmader from Duke University and Durham VA Medical Centers.

On Monday, Moderna asked the FDA for emergency use of its COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer did the same last week.
Last week, U.S. health leaders said the first COVID-19 vaccines could be distributed in the U.S. by Dec. 12, although the vaccine isn't expected to be widely available until at least the spring.

Moncef Slaoui, the head of the U.S. government's effort to develop a vaccine against COVID-19, said that based on plans, the amount of the population who need to be vaccinated for life to return to normal is likely to happen in May.

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