Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen received the coronavirus vaccine Friday in an event that was carried on national TV and livestreams.
Early Friday afternoon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was been given the vaccination in her office by Dr. Brian Monahan, the Congressional attending physician.
Pence and Pelosi are, thus far, the highest ranking political leaders in the nation to receive the vaccine. President Donald Trump, who contracted the virus earlier this year, has not been vaccinated.
President-elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill will reportedly receive the first of two vaccines on Monday.
Earlier this week, Pence said he would receive the vaccine without hesitation and declared “we have come to the beginning of the end of the coronavirus pandemic.”
Despite an earlier tweet from President Trump that the Moderna vaccine has been approved for emergency use distribution, Pence and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the drug hasn’t yet been approved.
On Thursday, the U.S. surpassed 17 million confirmed coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University, and continues to also lead the world in deaths, with more than 310,000.
Later that day, an FDA advisory panel voted to recommend approval of Moderna’s COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine, which in trials was shown to be safe and nearly 95% effective, according to reports.
The FDA was expected to quickly grant emergency use authorization to the vaccine and distribute it nationwide, with doses reaching states as soon as Monday, reports said.
This weekend, a federal panel of vaccination experts is holding an emergency meeting to decide who will receive vaccine priority after the initial round of health care workers and nursing home residents, in January, February and March.
The panelists are leaning toward putting “essential workers” first because bus drivers, grocery store clerks and similar employees can’t work from home. They are the people getting infected most often and where concerns about racial inequities in risk are most apparent.
But other experts say people age 65 and older should be next, along with people with certain medical conditions. Those are the people who are dying at the highest rates, they say.
The group is scheduled to vote on the proposal Sunday, one day after it discusses a vaccine made by Moderna.
“I think we know this isn’t going to be perfect. We don’t have vaccine for everyone right away, so we’re going to have to make difficult decisions,” said Claire Hannan, executive director of an organization that represents the managers of state vaccination programs.
If essential workers are indeed next up, states already have different ideas about who among them should be closer to the front of the line.
The advice of the expert panel — the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — is almost always endorsed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s what happened earlier this month, when the group said top priority should be given to health care workers and residents of long-term care homes for the 20 million initial vaccinations this month.
But it’s not clear things will go the same way in the next phase. The CDC’s director, Dr. Robert Redfield, has said he believes priority should be given to people age 70 and older who live with children or grandchildren.
The advisory panel’s chairman, Dr. Jose Romero, told The Associated Press he was aware of Redfield’s earlier comments but had not spoken directly with him about it.
Redfield declined to say if he would prioritize seniors over essential workers, even if the panel recommends the reverse. “I look forward to listening to the advisory group’s discussion, and to receiving its recommendation for consideration,” he said in an emailed statement to the AP.
States don’t have to follow the guidance.
After the CDC panel said health care workers and nursing home residents should get the first doses, most states followed those recommendations. But there have been a few exceptions. Utah said long-term care residents should be in line behind health care workers, instead of sharing the front with them. Massachusetts included prisoners and homeless people in the first tier, while Nevada, New Hampshire and Wyoming did the same for police officers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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