SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – Free COVID-19 vaccinations could be available nationwide as soon as the end of this year under a proposal from federal health agencies and the Defense Department.
The plan will begin ramping up in January or potentially later this year. Initially there may be a limited supply of vaccines, and the focus will be on protecting health workers, other essential employees, and people in vulnerable groups. Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield told Congress on Wednesday morning that he expects the first limited batch of vaccines to be ready in November or December.
The proposal includes the following goals:
- For patients not be charged for their shots, and officials say they are working to make that the case for everyone, whether they are Medicare recipients, uninsured, or covered by insurance at their jobs.
- Creating massive information technology network to track who is getting which vaccines and when.
“Early in (the) COVID-19 vaccination program there may be a limited supply of vaccine and vaccine efforts may focus on those critical to the response, providing direct care and maintaining societal functions, as well as those at highest risk for developing severe illness,” Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield said.
The second and third phases of the program would entail vaccinating the rest of the population. States and local communities are charged with putting together their own distribution framework, proposals for which must be submitted in the next month.
Officials involved with the planning say that it will likely take months for the vaccine to be widely available. To accelerate the process, the White House backed an initiative titled Operation Warp Speed. The hope is to have vaccines ready to ship within one day of their emergency use approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
Experts say somewhere between 70 percent and 90 percent of Americans have to receive a vaccination or be immune from the coronavirus for the United States to be thoroughly protected from COVID-19. However, a poll from the Associated Press shows roughly 1 in 5 Americans say they would not get a COVID-19 vaccine and 31 percent are not sure.
For a vaccine to receive approval, FDA guidelines require it to be at least 50 percent effective.
