Iowa health care workers, nursing homes to get 1st vaccines

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Health care workers and residents and staff at nursing homes are expected to be the first to get COVID-19 vaccines in Iowa later this month, state officials said Thursday.

Iowa expects to receive 172,000 doses of vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna over the next month, assuming they receive emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. Each vaccine requires people to get two shots weeks apart.

Iowa will use a portion of its initial allocation for health care workers, storing the vaccines at six health care sites across the state, Iowa Department of Human Services director Kelly Garcia said. The state will reserve the rest for a federal program that will use pharmacies to vaccinate residents and employees at skilled nursing facilities.

Iowa outlined its distribution plan for the earliest doses as the state reported a single-day record number of virus deaths, 70.

Iowa will form an advisory council to make recommendations about which populations should receive priority in the coming weeks and months when the vaccines are in limited supply, Garcia said.

Residents and staff at prisons and state-run institutions for the disabled are not included in the first round but will be prioritized ahead of others, she said.