Consider This from NPR - Fauci Predicts Widespread Vaccine Availability By April. Are Americans Ready?

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

Dr. Anthony Fauci said this week that it's likely that any healthy American who wants a coronavirus vaccine will be able to walk into a drugstore and get one by April. The challenge will be convincing enough people not to put it off. While the vaccine is months away for most, health care personnel and residents of long-term care facilities will be able to receive the first doses when they become available, a committee from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended this week. NPR's Pien Huang has reported on that decision and others by the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices. NPR's Andrea Hsu reports on the debate over mandatory vaccines in the workplace. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's time for Americans to get ready to be vaccinated. I want to encourage Americans to get prepared and to get educated now. At a briefing on Wednesday for Operation Warp Speed, the government's vaccine development program, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said people should get online and do their research now. Visit the CDC's website to find out more about the vaccines we're developing and the process they've gone through. With the FDA weighing emergency approval for two vaccines, Azar isn't the only government official telling people to get ready. By the time we get to April, the normal, healthy young man or woman, 30 years old, who's got no underlying conditions, can walk in to a CVS or to a Walgreens and get

vaccinated. Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg this week, anyone who wants to should be able to get a shot by April. The challenge is convincing people not to put it off. If they want to wait a month or so, that's OK. But I don't want them to wait six to eight to nine months. A return to normal life, Fauci said, depends on at least 75 percent of the population getting vaccinated. So if you want to be part of the solution, get vaccinated and say, I'm not going to be one of the people that's going to be a stepping stone for the virus to go to somebody else. I'm going to be a stepping stone for the virus to go to somebody else. I'm going to be a dead end to the virus. Consider this. For most of us, a vaccine is just months away. The next phase of the public health effort is convincing enough people to get it. From NPR, I'm Adi Cornish.

It's Wednesday, December 2nd. Since the 1980s, hip hop and America's prisons have grown side by side. And we're going to investigate this connection to see how it lifts us up and holds us down. Hip hop is talking about what we live, trying to live the American dream, failing at the American dream. I'm Sydney Madden. I'm Rodney Carmichael. Listen now to the Louder Than a Riot podcast from NPR Music, where we trace the collision of rhyme and punishment in

America. It's Consider This from NPR. While a vaccine is months away for most of us, for health care workers and people in long-term care facilities, it could be a matter of weeks. I'm gaveling the meeting to order. This is the emergency meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, that's a group of doctors and medical scientists, held a closely watched meeting on Tuesday this week. They were voting on a series of recommendations for who should get the very first doses of a coronavirus vaccine. This committee is an independent group within the CDC, which almost always adopts the recommendations. I'll just mention that Dr. Beth Bell opened the three-hour meeting with a grim statistic. Since we're averaging one COVID

death per minute in the United States right now, in the time it takes us to have this ACIP meeting, 180 people will have died from COVID-19. So we are acting, I guess, none too soon. First slide, please. Now, the committee has been working for months on these recommendations. Dr. Atmar, yes. Which boil down to a tiered system. Dr. Alt, yes. For states and local authorities to decide what to do with the first doses of a vaccine. Dr. Bell.

Bell, yes. This vote this week was about who is in the very first tier. Therefore, the motion passes. Committee Chair Dr. Jose Romero announced the 13-to-1 decision. Vaccination in the initial phase of the COVID-19 vaccination program, phase 1A, should be offered to both health care personnel and residents of long-term care facilities. Health care personnel and residents of long-term care facilities will

receive the first doses of a vaccine. How many doses will that be and when? Amanda Cohn of the CDC laid out the best case scenario. We anticipate having about 40 million doses, so enough to cover somewhere between 15 and 20 million individuals, which does cover a large portion of health care workers by the end of December. Another 5 or 10 million doses could be available each week, Cohn said, for other high-risk groups, in an order still to be determined. By the way, one reason the vote was 13-1? The lone no vote, Dr. Helen Talbott, an associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. In a public meeting last week, Talbott said she wasn't sure people in long-term care facilities should get the vaccine so soon, in part because coincidental deaths in nursing homes might erode public trust in the vaccine. And I think you're going to have

a very striking backlash of my grandmother got the vaccine and she passed away and they're not likely to be related, but that will become remembered and break some of the confidence in the vaccine. NPR's Ping Wang reported on this week's meeting of the ACIP and others. Find her work at the link in our episode notes. By the way, we should mention some other vaccine news. On Wednesday, officials in the UK approved the vaccine developed by Pfizer for emergency use in that country. That is one of two vaccines still awaiting emergency approval here in the U.S. And that approval has to come from the FDA.

In the meantime, the CDC committee we just told you about still has a lot of work to do in terms of deciding how the vaccine rollout should progress in the early part of next year. One of the doctors on that committee is Robert Atmar of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He spoke to NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about what's next. So let's start with the recommendations from this panel yesterday. It makes total sense that healthcare workers should get first access. And then who next? That's something that we have had some preliminary discussions on but have not yet determined. The police, fire department, teachers, and other people in essential positions might be in the next group, followed by persons with underlying diseases

that put them at greater risk of complications or death, including persons over the age of 65. Do you still have outstanding questions about either of these two leading vaccine candidates that you would want answers to before vaccinating, say, your colleagues at Baylor Medicine? I will want to review the data and particularly the safety data. We know that individuals will have some side effects. I think knowing exactly what the reactions are to be expected will reassure individuals who are going to receive the vaccine. May I ask, are you hearing any hesitation among staff? People saying, I'm not sure I want to be in the very first group. Let me see how it goes for a couple of weeks.

We're hearing a lot of hesitation among healthcare personnel. And I think a lot of it has to do with the politicized nature of the vaccine development and the whole response to the pandemic. So we're beginning to roll out education to reass is important to try and take steps that will be effective in preventing disease. If you are hearing hesitation even from health care workers, from frontline people at Baylor, how do you expect to persuade the rest of Texas, the wider population? Well, many of the health care workers I've spoken to who have expressed concern to me don't necessarily want to be in the first group, even though they're prioritized for the first group, but want to see for themselves how their friends and colleagues respond to the vaccine. I understand that's human nature, but I certainly plan on being a model if either vaccine becomes available and is recommended by the ACIP to demonstrate my confidence in the vaccine and the whole review and approval process. You'll be as close to the front of the line as you are able to get. Correct.

Dr. Robert Atmar with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. So vaccines will be available to health care workers and those in long-term care facilities. But will they be mandatory? In hospital settings, it's pretty likely. Flu vaccines already are mandatory for some health care employees. A mandatory COVID vaccination in any other workplace and whether employers could require it is a huge open question. Here's NPR's Andrea Hsu.

Only a couple of months into the pandemic, Holly Smith had made up her mind. Her restaurant, Cafe Juanita in Kirkland, Washington, would not reopen to diners until there was a COVID-19 vaccine. She's already told her staff, you are going to get vaccinated. Some of my young millennials are like, so I'm taking this as a directive, like as a mandate. Is that how you mean it? And it's a scary thing, you know? Like, yeah. Yes, yes. Smith had 28 employees before the pandemic. She's had to lay off all but five. Her fine dining spot has become a takeout-only business. Even with a much smaller staff, Smith is serious about safety.

She requires her workers to get tested if they go on vacation with people outside their bubble or if they're showing any sign of illness. I believe in civil liberties and all those different things, but we have people who live with their parents. We have people who live with a husband who has diabetes. The staff have to be healthy and safe before you can move forward, she says. If we're vaccinated, I think I can move out in the world and be responsible for these 28 or 30 people, plus all the people coming in.

Now, if you're wondering, can she actually do this? Can she require her workers to get vaccinated? The answer appears to be yes, but her workers also have the right to request exemptions. Under federal law, someone could say, I have a medical or religious reason I can't be vaccinated. And companies must try to provide accommodations. It's incredibly hard to manage a mandate. Johnny Taylor Jr. is president of the Society for Human Resource Management. He says each request must be evaluated on its own merits. Now, imagine if there were hundreds of them. A recent poll found four in 10 Americans don't want the vaccine, though that polling was done before anyone knew how well the vaccines would work.

So this is a true headache for HR professionals. That's why you're likely to see many companies strongly encourage the vaccine, but stop short of mandating it. Take, for example, the pork producer Smithfield. The company told NPR they're not anticipating a firm mandate, but they want to offer the vaccine on site. Even with all the headaches, Taylor thinks many employers will go for the mandate. After all, they have an obligation to get rid of any known hazards in the workplace, like COVID.

It's real, and it's devastating. So I think the dynamic changes, employers are actually going to position this as, I need to do this. Full stop. Now, there are some workplaces that already mandate the flu vaccine, most commonly hospitals. Dr. James McDevitt is Dean of Clinical Affairs at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He says the annual flu shot is required for some 14,000 people, doctors, nurses, med students. Even the clerks that are sitting in a computer that don't see live patients. It's the right thing to do for society, he says. If you claim an exemption, you have to wear a mask. Now, with the COVID vaccine, Baylor is not going to make it mandatory until they can actually get enough supply to cover everyone.

And until it's been deemed safe. Not just by the FDA, McDevitt says, but by his own colleagues. Johnny Taylor Jr. says whatever companies decide, there are likely to be challenges. And so? Congress and state legislators are going to have to think about how to offer some protection on both sides. Legal protection for companies that mandate the vaccine in case someone has a bad reaction, even though you will have to sign a waiver before you get the shot. They've also got to protect the employers who decide not to make it a mandate and then who are sued by employees who contract it. Taylor has been meeting with federal employment officials, telling them employers want to do the right thing, but they're in a tough, and they're going to need help getting through this.

NPR's Andrea Hsu. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Audie Cornish.