Priority will go to people over 80 years old and to nursing home caregivers, and even for those groups, demand could quickly outstrip supply in the early months, public health officials cautioned. The 800,000 doses Britain expects to get this month “could be the only batch we receive for some time,” warned Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers.
Britain will be the first country to confront the challenges of rolling out a vaccine that uses revolutionary technology and requires extremely careful handling.
The United States isn’t far behind in its approval decision, and experience here could inform U.S. efforts — though the United Kingdom’s universal health-care system allows a more centralized approach.
The chief operations officer for Operation Warp Speed, Army Gen. Gustave Perna, told reporters this week the federal government plans to distribute 6.4 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine to states within 24 hours after an expected emergency-use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration.
While the United States, like Britain, may need time to ramp up, the White House vaccine team predicted 100 million Americans could be immunized by the end of February.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel on Tuesday voted to recommend prioritizing residents of long-term care homes and health-care workers. That’s in keeping with the priority lists in many countries around the world. But Britain shocked its National Health Service medical workers Thursday evening by revealing that, contrary to long-held assumptions, they would not be among the first to get an injection.
Front-line nurses and doctors have been regularly hailed as national heroes in Britain. In the early months of the cresting pandemic, citizens filled the streets banging pots and pans, blowing horns and clapping in weekly displays of appreciation for their courage.
But now, along with much of the country, they will be expected to wait.
Mike Adams, director for England at the Royal College of Nursing, said that in the past few weeks, “messaging from politicians has been focused on ‘the NHS staff will get it,’ and so some of the narrative from politicians has been unhelpful in raising expectations.”
Adams told The Washington Post: “We want to see our members have access to it for their own safety and to prevent further outbreaks in the areas they are working, but we appreciate that with limited supply of vaccine, you understand why the most vulnerable are being prioritized. But the confusion is the most unhelpful part.”
Rachel Luby is a nurse specializing in mental health at NHS in London. “For me the issue is not that those aged over 80 having the vaccination before I do. I have seen first hand, in my grandmother, how loss of routine and activity has impacted her, and she has gone from an active, healthy woman to someone who is now quite…
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