DES MOINES, Iowa - Iowa's newly appointed Infectious Disease Advisory Council is developing a distribution plan for the COVID-19 vaccines coming into the state.
The panel consists of doctors, nurses and health care administrators. It's creating a three-phased approach and gathering information to determine which members of Iowa's workforce will get the vaccine first.
The state is set to receive the first of 172,000 doses this Sunday, which are being reserved for frontline health care workers and nursing homes.
The vaccines are coming from Pfizer and Moderna, and could be available for wide distribution to the public by spring of next year.
The Infectious Disease Advisory Council will first focus on phase one of the distribution plan for critical populations, which is broadly defined in three categories of healthcare personnel, critical infrastructure workers, and people at increased risk for severe COVID-19 illness.
The council will make recommendations to the state Department of Public Health.