1. I am listening to #ACIP again today & will tweet about the discussion today about who should be next in line for vaccine after health care workers & nursing home residents & staff.
Tough choices ahead, Nancy Messonnier of @CDCgov tells the committee as it starts its day.

2. @DrNancyM_CDC tells #ACIP that it is currently anticipated that there will be enough vaccine to vaccinate 20M people in Dec, 30M in January and 50M in February.

3. Anyone who wants to watch the #ACIP meeting can find it here: https://www.ustream.tv/channel/VWBXKBR8af4

4. #ACIP's #Covid19 vaccine priority recommendations for Phase 1b are people 75 yrs and older & front line essential workers. (Much smaller group than all essential workers.)
Phase 1c: people 65-75 & people with high risk med conditions & other essential workers.

5. Here's a breakdown of frontline essential workers (30M) vs non frontline essential workers. #ACIP #covidvacccine #prioritization

6. #ACIP is trying to thread the needle here. ACIP had earlier indicated it wanted to vaccinate essential workers in Phase 1b; there was pushback from Azar, Birx & others, who wanted seniors to be next. Here ACIP is recommending seniors at highest risk plus key essential workers.

7. #ACIP's recommendations for Phase 1b & Phase 1c would see 202M people in total offered vaccine. With only enough vaccine to vaccinate 100M people by the end of Feb., this is going to take a while.

8. #ACIP says that there may need to be some subprioritization within targeted groups, while vaccine is scarce. Some suggestions of how to do that here.

9. @DocJeffD just pleaded for money to turn vaccines into vaccinations. State & local public health depts are on life support. The federal government has delivered 2 Cadillac vaccines "but they come with empty gas tanks."
Hearing this over & over. $$ needed to put vax in arms.

10. #ACIP member Grace Lee warns that Phase 1c may be too large a group, depending on availability of #CovidVaccine when it's time to move to that phase. May need to adjust as time goes on, Lee said.

11. As #ACIP member Keipp Talbot points out, the easiest part of vaccinating Americans is happening right now — health workers & nursing home residents. When it comes to finding people in the broader community, it's going to be harder & much more expensive. And there's no money.

12. There's been a ton of debate in society at large about teachers and where they should be in the priority list for #CovidVaccine. The #ACIP recommendation has teachers in Phase 1b — recognition of the critical role schools play.

13. #ACIP member Peter Szilagyi said Phase 1b may not take very long, especially as a lot of people have indicated they may want to wait a while to get vaccinated. Stressed work needs to be done to promote vaccine confidence.
This has been missing, bizarrely.

14. #ACIP discussion now about whether to push 65-74 yos & people with high risk med conditions ahead of some front-line essential workers. Pablo Sanchez argued FL essential workers may be younger, survive #Covid19. But...

15. Keipp Talbot noted that just because younger people survive #Covid19 at higher rates doesn't mean they survive unscathed. Many of the younger people who survive hospitalization suffer strokes, heart failure; some have had multiple amputations. #ACIP

16. Some discussion at #ACIP about putting off vote for Phase 1c to continue work subprioritizing that group. But @DrNancyM_CDC warns that people working in the last mile — the people planning vaccination programs — need priority guidance NOW.

17. Public comment section of the meeting — a feature of every #ACIP meeting — on now. Current speaker raised concern that the Trump administration's more draconian public charge policy will discourage immigrants from getting #CovidVaccine.
Good point.

18. Current commenter is urging @CDCgov to develop easier to read #CovidVaccine factsheets. Current EUA documentation is too difficult for many people to read, he said. #ACIP

19. Some folks were asking earlier about what conditions put people at higher risk of severe #Covid19, ie for the purposes of qualifying for earlier vaccination. Here's the current list.

20. #ACIP member Beth Bell, who chairs the #Covid19 vaccines work group, notes that about half the U.S. population has one of the health conditions on the list in Tweet 19 above, so more subprioritization will need to be conducted.

21. Sorry, been writing a story. #ACIP voted 13-1 to approve the proposed recommendation for the Phase 1b and Phase 1c priority groups.

22. #ACIP members are explaining their votes. Many are speaking about how difficult these decisions have been. "This is without doubt the hardest vote that I have taken in my six-and-a-half years on this committee," said chair Jose Romero.
#CovidVaccines

23. The sole dissenter on the vote, Hank Bernstein, said he felt that adults 65 to 74 should have been included in Phase 1b. The #Covid18 toll in this group is similar to that of adults 75 and older, who are in 1b, Bernstein said.

24. Last tweet for this thread. @CDCgov just published figures on the number of vaccines that have been shipped so far, how many have been administered.
More than half a million Americans have been vaccinated so far.
Wow!