An Indian-American health expert on Biden's vaccine deployment plan

 Since the risk of contracting COVID-19 can vary for different groups of people, prioritizing a vaccine will be difficult, and Joe Biden will leave these decisions to health experts, said Dr.

WASHINGTON: US President-elect Joe Biden will allow health experts to determine who gets the COVID-19 vaccine in the country first, according to Dr. Celine Gunder, a member of his coronavirus advisory board.

Since the risk of contracting COVID-19 can vary between different groups of people, prioritizing a vaccine will be difficult, and Biden will leave these decisions to health experts, said the Indian-American infectious disease doctor.

It is expected that there will likely be a limited supply of coronavirus vaccine doses available immediately after the vaccine has been authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration.

"Other than health care workers, other people who will be the first to receive it will be elderly people with chronic underlying medical conditions, as well as communities of color that have been disproportionately affected by this pandemic," Gunder told CNN. on Friday.

The number of deaths in the country since the start of the epidemic has now reached more than 264,000. Nearly 60,000 people could lose their lives over the next three weeks, according to group forecasts published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week.

"Now it's among these groups that it's starting to become a little more controversial," she added. "How do you prioritize an 85-year-old in a nursing home versus a 65-year-old African American - especially when this 65-year-old has the same risk of developing a major disease?"

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Immunization Practices Advisory Committee (ACIP) will recommend that groups receive the vaccine first.

“This is where it gets political and overt, and this is where the president-elect leaves it up to public health experts and scientists to figure out how best to tailor the limited supply first,” said Biden-appointed. Earlier this month, to its advisory board on the Coronavirus.

ACIP has called an emergency meeting on December 1, where they will vote on the first group to get a vaccine.

"Because we know the vaccine will be available in very limited doses," said Rick Bright, another member of the World Health Organization, "even if they prioritize health care workers and the elderly in their population, it would be really important to be more accurate." Coronavirus Biden Advisory Board.

"They will discuss this in detail in the health care workers. If I only have so many doses available, how can I prioritize the healthcare workers first and make these recommendations to the states?" He said.

Typically, the ACIP meets after a vaccine has been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to make recommendations, but they are working proactively in anticipation of a prompt decision by the FDA, the report said.

“We expect imminent permission if this vaccine proves to be effective and safe in the near future and we want to be at the point where we provide appropriate guidance to states and jurisdictions for the use of these vaccines,” said ACIP President Dr. Jose Romero told CNN.

Major US pharmaceutical company Pfizer has applied to the FDA for an emergency use license for the vaccine. The report said an independent panel of experts, the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, is scheduled to meet on December 10 to discuss the implementation.

FDA officials say a decision must be made within a few weeks of the meeting and possibly much earlier.

On Friday, the United States celebrated the 25th day in a row with more than 100,000 new cases. Hospitalizations reached a new high on Thursday - for the 17th in a row - with more than 90,400 COVID-19 patients nationwide, according to the COVID-19 Tracking Project.