CDC Votes on Who Will Get Covid-19 Vaccine First

On Tuesday, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expert panel decided that the first doses of a Covid-19 vaccine should go to health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities. The FDA is set to approve the emergency use of two vaccines later this month, which means that some people in those two groups may get them before the start of 2021.

“Although the recommendations of the CDC panel aren’t necessarily binding, many states are looking to the CDC as a guide as they make their plans,” said Alliance Executive Director Richard Fiesta. “By vaccinating health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities first, we are protecting those who are most at risk of getting sick from the virus or dying.”

Recently the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that more than 100,000 individuals living and working in long-term care facilities have died from the virus. These deaths account for 40% of all Covid-19 deaths in the nation.

Find Out When You May Be Able to Get the Coronavirus Vaccine

The New York Times this week released an online tool to help Americans get an idea of when they may be eligible to receive a vaccine to prevent COVID-19.

The tool takes into account your age, where you live, and whether you have health conditions that put you at higher risk of developing COVID-19. It utilizes the CDC guidelines for vaccine distribution which many states say they will follow.

To use the tool go to this webpage.

GOP Senators are Again Plotting to Cut Earned Retirement Benefits

President-elect Joe Biden is set to inherit a $26.9 trillion debt, a $7 trillion increase since President Trump first took office. Some of it is due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the enormous 2017 tax cuts for millionaires and corporations are a major driver. Although the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans claimed that those cuts would spur enough economic growth to “pay for themselves,” the Congressional Budget Office has estimated they will add $1.9 trillion to deficits over 10 years.

“We are ready to defeat any plan to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” said Joseph Peters, Jr., Secretary-Treasurer of the Alliance. “When the 2017 tax giveaways to corporations and the wealthiest 1% became law, we knew the same politicians who voted for the tax cuts would try to cut Social Security and Medicare later. We cannot let our guard down just because President Trump was defeated.”

Help Us Win the Georgia Senate Runoff Elections

The first phone bank shift will be on Tuesday, December 8th at 2:00 Eastern Time, and you do not need to live in Georgia to participate and call Georgia Alliance members.

Please follow this link to sign up.

The voter registration deadline for the runoffs is December 7, and early voting begins on December 14. Election Day is January 5, 2021.

“If Jon Ossoff and Reverend Warnock win, Democrats will control the U.S. Senate,” said Robert Roach, Jr., President of the Alliance.

How Pharma Money Colors Operation Warp Speed’s Quest to Defeat COVID

By Rachana Pradhan, Kaiser Health News

April 16 was a big day for Moderna, a Massachusetts biotech company on the verge of becoming a front-runner in the U.S. government’s race for a coronavirus vaccine. It had received roughly half a billion dollars in federal funding to develop a COVID shot that might be used on millions of Americans.

Thirteen days after the massive infusion of federal cash — which triggered a jump in the company’s stock price — Moncef Slaoui, a Moderna board member and longtime drug industry executive, was awarded options to buy 18,270 shares in the company, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The award added to 137,168 options he’d accumulated since 2018, the filings show.

It wouldn’t be long before President Donald Trump announced Slaoui as the top scientific adviser for the government’s $12 billion Operation Warp Speed program to rush COVID vaccines to market.

Read more by clicking here.

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