Officials at the local, state and federal level are continuing to lay out their plans for the coronavirus vaccine, and while a critical Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vote just laid out who will get the vaccine first, the Chicago Department of Public Health also established a timeline for their rollout.
According to Dr. Candace Robinson, medical director of the Chicago Department of Public Health, the city is expecting to see its first doses of the vaccine in the third or fourth week of December, with multiple candidates currently before the Food and Drug Administration as they seek emergency approval this month.
After the CDPH held a press conference on Tuesday to lay out their plans, the CDC voted by a 13-1 margin to include healthcare workers who care for COVID-19 patients and those working in nursing homes in the very first group that will receive the vaccine when it becomes publicly available.
That plan jibes with Chicago’s plans for the vaccine, and health officials say they will follow CDC guidance.
“Those who are seeing COVID patients and those who are performing procedure that put them at risk will be first,” Robinson said.
The big question will be which group would be next to receive the vaccine, with those with underlying medical conditions, critical workers and senior citizens all potentially next in line for the treatment. The CDC has yet to make that determination, but with shipments of vaccines accelerating as more is produced and as more companies come to market with their own treatments, that decision will need to be mad quickly.
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Dr. Allison Arwady, director of CPDH, says that the city is expecting to receive 20-25,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine, and she says that the first wave of residents to receive the treatment will be scheduled to receive both doses that the Pfizer and Moderna treatments require.
