Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said Wednesday that normal, pre-pandemic life may not resume until mid- to late- 2021, when an effective COVID-19 vaccine is widely available.
“If you’re asking me when is it going to be generally available to the American public so we can begin to take advantage of a vaccine to get back to our regular life, I think we’re probably looking at late second-quarter, third-quarter 2021,” Redfield said.
The time frame offered by Redfield means that a return to normalcy may not come until spring 2021 at the earliest — possibly not until late summer of that year.
The Department of Health and Human Services unveiled its vaccine distribution plan early Wednesday. It entails cooperation between states and federal agencies to allocate first doses to the most at-risk populations, such as healthcare workers and elderly patients.
The first doses of the vaccine will be distributed in January 2021, according to HHS, but there are not yet detailed plans for prioritizing which groups will receive first rounds of the vaccine.
“It’ll be in a prioritized way, those first responders and those at greatest risk for death, and then eventually, that will expand. … Hard to believe, but there’s about 80 million people in our country that have significant comorbidities that put themselves at risk,” Redfield said. “They have to get vaccinated, and then the general public.”
The CDC maintains that the goal is to make a vaccine available to everyone who wants one free of charge. The health agency’s distribution plan also noted that if the public health threat remains well into 2021, the CDC will create an “ongoing vaccination program” so that patients can receive the vaccine while also receiving routine vaccinations such as the flu shot and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.
