CLEVELAND — While the country waits for a vaccine to come out, who will be the first to get it and where will it be available?
A national collaboration of medical and public health professionals from across the nation has been addressing that question for almost 3 months now.
We now know that pharmacies will play a key role in making the detemination.
"Hopefully by late 2020 there will be a tier one or phase one release of the vaccine from the federal government down to the states who will play quarterback on how it's distributed," says Jason Briscoe, a pharmacist at Discount Drug Mart. "First up would be front line healthcare workers, first responders, police, fire, EMTs and then the most vulnerable."
Then the hope is that in early 2021 production will ramp up enough that the vaccine would become available for everyone else who needs it.
What we don't know yet is how effective a vaccine may be or how much it will cost.
For more information on how pharmacies are preparing for the COVID-19 vaccine, click here.