COVID Vaccine Prioritized When Available 'This Is A Pandemic That Disproportionately Impacted People Of Color'

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Once there's a COVID vaccine, who will get it first?

A Chicago doctor is part of a group of scientists, engineers and doctors giving their recommendation to the CDC.

CBS 2's Meredith Barack reports on what to expect when a vaccine is available to the public. There are nearly 190 COVID-19 vaccines either in pre-clinical development or undergoing clinical trials across the globe.

Experts believe when one of those vaccines is authorized for use, demand will exceed supply, so they have come up with a plan they say will be most beneficial for society.

"What we did was to look at some core foundational principles as well as ways of thinking about risk and who most needed the vaccine with the understanding that for a while there would be a scarcity in the supply of vaccines."

With that, Dr. Helene Gayle and the Committee on Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus broke down who will receive the vaccine first.

It would go into four phases by looking at who would be at highest risk for transmission, as well as highest risk for severe morbidity and mortality and who had important roles in society.

*Phase 1A includes healthcare workers as well as first responders.

*Phase 1B would be people with underlying conditions and elderly who live in places like nursing homes.

*Phase 2 includes teachers, essential jobs and people living in places like detention centers or homeless shelters.

*Phase 3 includes young adults, children and workers in industries that pose a moderately high-risk of exposure.

And finally, Phase 4 is basically anybody residing in the United States because we feel like ultimately everybody should have access to this vaccine, regardless of race or socioeconomic status.

"This is a pandemic that has disproportionately impacted people of color and we want to take into consideration'" Gayle said. "So while we had those four tiers, we also said there should be preference given to geographies where we know people have been particularly hard hit."

How it would be distributed across the country?

"Some of the vaccines have very stringent requirements and may not be able to be given in the way now that we go and get a flu shot," Gayle said. "But for most of the vaccines that we hope will be soon available, we've got a distribution system in place we have agencies that know how to work together."

As for when Dr. Gayle thinks this all could become a reality?

"Once we do have a safe and effective vaccine, I think we can ramp up production fairly quickly. So I'm hopeful that sometime in the first half of 2021 we'll be off and running and we'll be able to start getting vaccines to people."

Gayle said while vaccine distribution is an essential part of pandemic response, other efforts such as social distancing, contact tracing and wearing masks will continue to be vital especially during the early phases of vaccination.