The US moves forward on Covid Vaccines

On Friday, CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD, in a statement said he accepted the interim recommendation from its vaccine advisory panel earlier this week that healthcare workers and nursing home residents should be the first two priority groups for receiving the first vaccine doses.

He said he hopes future recommendations, when more vaccine is available, will prioritize people ages 70 and older who live in multigenerational households. “Often our Hispanic, Black and Tribal Nations families care for their elderly in multigenerational households and they are also at significant risk,” he said.

In other vaccine developments, Moderna has stated that  interim durability data from a phase 1 study suggests that neutralizing antibodies in people who received the vaccine remained at high levels for 3 months after the second dose across all age groups. Researchers detailed the interim durability findings on Friday in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine.

Moderna also reaffirmed that it expects to have 20 million doses available in the United States by the end of 2020 and projects that 100 to 125 million will be available globally in the first quarter of 2021.  The overall US coronavirus total has climbed to 14,282,494 cases, with 277,958 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins tracker.

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