Arizona Vaccine Prioritization Advisory Committee Approves the New ACIP Recommendations
Last week the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 13 to 1 to flesh out the priority population recommendations a bit more. This article provides additional details. The new recommendations make the following changes:
Phase 1b: persons aged ≥75 years are moved to category 1b (previously 1c)
Phase 1c: persons aged 65–74 years, persons aged 16–64 years with high-risk medical conditions
Elevating folks 75+ to AZ’s next (1b) vaccination phase is meaningful and ethical. Thanks to AZ’s independent Vaccine Prioritization Committee for this evidence-based decision. Here’s the updated decision by the AZ Committee: https://bit.ly/38IJnlZ
There are more than 1M persons in 1b now, so outreach to seniors will be key. Because the decision to add 75+ to 1b was made yesterday (and there are 500K + people in that category) the county health departments are still working out the details. There aren’t anywhere close to 500K doses available in AZ right now. Could they focus on 85+ first? We’ll see. That would be an evidence-based decision.
