NEW YORK (Reuters) – Most state and local jurisdictions expect to be able to vaccinate their healthcare workers within three weeks of receiving the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, an official from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday during an advisory committee meeting.
Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, spoke during a meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to discuss which groups should receive COVID-19 vaccines once they are available, possibly in December.
A CDC presentation released at the meeting showed that the agency expects around 40 million COVID-19 vaccine doses will be available by the end of December, with shipments of 5 million to 10 million doses being made per week once a vaccine is authorized by regulators.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; writing by Caroline Humer; Editing by Leslie Adler)