Experts debate a critical question in coronavirus vaccine race: who gets it first?

WASHINGTON (SBG) — There’s a critical question that must be answered as scientists around the world race to create an effective vaccine. Once an option is ready for the masses, who gets it first? Experts involved in the process tell Spotlight on America there is no easy answer.

At a Congressional hearing in late July, Representative Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., asked the million-dollar question everyone is wondering these days, "Is it safe to say that every American will be able to get a vaccine once it’s approved?" Lawmakers, public health experts and scientists are all trying to find the answer as they formulate a plan for vaccinating more than 300 million Americans against the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, took center stage at that hearing on Capitol Hill, saying, "I don’t think that we will have everybody getting it in the beginning. It probably will be phased in."

The vaccination process for COVID-19 will have to be phased because experts say it will likely take months before there are enough doses for everyone. That means tough choices will have to be made about who goes to the front of the line. In a conversation with Spotlight on America, Congressman Bill Foster, D-Ill., told us, "The ethical debate will rage."

Foster, a Harvard-educated scientist, says the debate is already underway and not just in the halls of Congress. While vaccine protocols are typically determined by a special advisory committee within the Centers for Disease Control, coronavirus is different. President Trump’s vaccine initiative "Operation Warp Speed" calls on a wide range of national health experts to find, manufacture and distribute the vaccine. The World Health Organization and an independent committee of experts working under the National Academy of Medicine and National Academies of Sciences is also working on a framework for equitable distribution.

"Maybe you give it to the elderly. Maybe you give it to the caregivers for the elderly, maybe our first responders," U.S. Representative Bill Foster said. "Is the only thing we’re trying to do is minimize the loss of human life or are there other considerations?"

Among the considerations are the legitimate and massive logistical hurdles that need to be overcome before coronavirus vaccinations can be administered. The Department of Defense, which is also heavily involved in "Operation Warp Speed", is expected to release its plans for helping to physically distribute the vaccine soon. But before the how and when can be answered, the decision about who gets priority is one bioethicist and public health experts are deeply examining. The decision, they say, requires balancing complex factors from race to risk, age to profession.

Monica Schoch-Spana, Ph.D. with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health tells Spotlight on America the public should have a say in the process. "This is a complex question that includes both technical dimensions and social dimensions," she explained. "I would argue that in addition to those national bodies that we open up a national dialogue that elicits wider input from the wider community on these complex questions."

In the past, the public has weighed in as the CDC developed rankings for vaccination priority after the initial SARS outbreak and global avian flu epidemic back in 2003. According to those guidelines, medical caregivers, members of the military, national security personnel and essential workers like EMS and public safety workers topped that list. Many are lobbying for those same groups to be prioritized again this time around. But Congressman Foster is clear. The decisions made in the midst of this pandemic will have long-lasting implications.

"The scientists can do the calculation of how many people have this population, or that population are likely to die if you distribute it this way. But we can't tell you to make the moral choice." Foster said. "I think we'll be looking backward at this for decades, for the moral decisions that we're making here."