LeadingAge Advocates for Prioritized Vaccine Allocation

Posted on September 9, 2020 by Jonathan Lips

Last week the LeadingAge national team submitted comments on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Discussion Draft of the Preliminary Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine,

commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health.

This draft framework includes recommendations for a tiered prioritization for a COVID-19 vaccine. The top priority group includes front line health care workers, including those in nursing homes, assisted living and home-based care. It also includes older adults living in “congregate or overcrowded settings,” which the report defines broadly, from residential settings such as nursing homes to more community-based settings such as multigenerational households. While NASEM was tasked with recommendations, not final decision making through this report, it is encouraging to see this prioritization in the draft.

LeadingAge’s key advocacy priorities are to support phase 1 status for front line workers (including aging services) and older adults in congregate settings, and for “congregate or overcrowded settings” to be defined broadly – with people living in or receiving independent living, affordable housing and community-based services explicitly identified in the final framework.

While the timing of a viable vaccine is still uncertain, we are grateful for LeadingAge’s advocacy in these early discussions.  For more detail see this LeadingAge analysis.