Nursing home residents and staff members will be among the first people in the United States to receive the coronavirus vaccine, NBC News reports.
But there are significant challenges to overcome before the vaccine is broadly administered to this high-risk population, which has been hit harder than any other by the pandemic.
The federal government has contracted with CVS and Walgreens to distribute the vaccine to long-term care facilities and open on-site clinics to vaccinate residents. That’s no small logistical feat, but it’s far from the only hurdle this mass vaccination effort faces.
Each state has to figure out where long-term care staff members must go to get vaccinated; some may have to go off-site. Public health officials are also confronting hesitancy among some workers, as well as residents and their family members, about getting a new vaccine that some are concerned has not been sufficiently tested on elderly, medically frail people.
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