It's Tuesday, December two. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America. The CDC panel over the weekend has made its recommendations on who is next in line to receive the two vaccines we have available so far. What it's called Phase one B. We'll see first responders such as police and firefighters, other frontline workers like teachers and grocery workers, and people
over seventy five get the vaccine. Karen Wintrout, health reporter at USA Today joins us for who's next in getting the Maderna and Fiser vaccine. Thanks for joining us, Karen, thanks for having me. A CDC panel met over the weekend to give their recommendations for who should be next in line for the vaccine. We have two vaccines out right now, one from five or one from Madernner. They're very similar vaccines. We've talked about them a lot before,
these m RINA vaccines. So the first people that were recommended to get these vaccines the Phase one A, we're front line healthcare workers and people in long term health care facilities. Now we're going to Phase one B. This is gonna be police, firefighters, teachers, and other essential frontline essential workers like grocery store workers. So, Karen, tell us what happened at the c d C meeting and what
they were recommending. So this committee makes the decisions, makes the recommendations as to who should get the vaccine in what order, and they did exactly what you just said. They recommended that people who are on the front lines, who can't stay home and keep themselves safe, being the next group of people. So as you said, teachers, grocery store clerks, firefighters, that sort of thing, and also people over seventy, so again the people at highest risk for
poor outcomes if they catch COVID. And to put this all in perspective, you know, obviously we're doing this because doses of the vaccine are in limited capacity. This phase that we're talking about right now, Phase one B, the second phase isn't supposed to start until February, right, I think that will probably start sooner than that. So what
they said today was twenty million doses in December. I think that will cover hospital workers and people in nursing homes, and then the next round will start at some point in January. We don't have a date yet. And they'll be thirty million doses available in January, so thirty million more people will be able to get vaccinated in January, and the twenty million who got vaccinated in December for the first time, we'll be able to get their second
shot in January. We've talked about this before. You know, states have the final say and who will get the vaccine next. These are just recommendations, but these are really difficult decisions and things to play out, things to go through on who should be next, and they make the
recommendations at the local level. You know, a lot of people can be angry or maybe say, hey, you're leaving other people out, things like that, but just talk a little bit about how difficult some of these decisions could be. To me. One of the trickiest is prisoners, people who are behind bars. So obviously, you know, we want to protect upstanding citizens first, but there's been huge outbreaks in prisons around the country and their outcomes are much worse
than they are in the general population. And also people from the public come into these prisons, prison guards, visitors, that sort of thing. So what happens in the prison doesn't necessarily stay in the prison. So the question is when do you vaccinate them? Do you vaccinate them now as you vaccinate nursing home residents and other people in congregate settings, in group settings, or do you wait until later. I saw that correction workers are in this phase one,
b our prisoners in that category as well. I think that's pretty much up to the states. I don't think they're saying you have to put them in one group or another. Some states have already begun in the first group, and other states are saying, no way, we don't want them that early. So it really is going to be a state by state decision there. The panel did also recommend the phase after that, Phase one C, and in there you get you know, public health workers, food service workers,
construction workers, media workers, and a few others. Those are people again who can't exclusively stay home, whose jobs take them not into a high risk situation, but into a situation where they come into contact with other people. Where do people get in line for these vaccines and prove that they are who they are, that they are one of these front line workers. Do they go through their employers,
are they going through their healthcare providers? How do they get in line for these You know, I'm not sure that's entirely clear yet. It's very easy with this first round. You know the hospital is going to vaccinate hospital workers, the nursing home is going to vaccinate its workers and its residents. Once you get into a broader population, I don't know. Am I gonna have to show my USA today? I d to get vaccinated right and you know I should be able to go theoretically to the Walgreens down
the street and get that. So could you sneak in early? It's possible that you could, certainly with the age requirements, so the next group is over seventy The group after that one C is sixty to seventy four, so that you could use a driver's license to show your age. For people who have comorbilities, who have other illnesses, high risk medical conditions. If you walk up to a pharmacist and say I have diabetes I need a shot, are they going to question that? It seems unly. It seems
like there'll be a lot of trust involved. I did have a question about the Fiser vaccine because the National Institutes of Health is looking for people to study those that have severe allergic reactions to the Fiser vaccine. I know there was a couple of cases in the UK, and the first day of the rollout there was a few cases that have happened here in the United States as well. So the n i H is looking to find people so they can study this to see what
might be causing all of that. So that's kind of what they have to do when they see a problem is get other people, kind of put them at risk in order to understand the problem. It's scary. I'm not sure I would volunteer for that, but I think, you know, certainly they'll have EpiPens and everything necessary, excuse me, to
help people if they get into a bad situation. Is it as simple as just giving somebody an EpiPen to get them out of their allergic reaction or is there a lot more that goes into that that actually seems to be the solution. I mean, sometimes I think with one of the four people you just mentioned needed a second EpiPen the second shot. But in general that solves the problem. But it's not fun from what I understand
from frankly giving themselves. It's a shot, it's quite unpleasant and um, you know, probably takes you a couple of days to recover. So it's not like a sneeze, you know. I mean, it's a it's a major medical situation, and they are going to be doing these things in medical settings. So I'm sure it's gonna be tough to find people, as you say, that are gonna be willing to kind
of put themselves through that. It goes that way. So we'll monitor all that and uh, we'll see how these rollouts of the vaccines continue to go in the US. Karen Weintrout, health reporter at USA Today, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you so much. I'm Ostar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget Deer Today's big news stories and check me out of the Daily Dive podcast every Monday to Friday. So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast