COVID-19 Vaccines
The following principles are key factors for nurses and other health care professionals to examine in consideration of immunization. Learn more about the development and distribution plans for COVID-19 vaccination.
It is a considerable challenge to reach a critical mass of people around the world to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines reach all recommended communities and countries. It will be important to establish and manage reliable supply chains for innovative approaches to effective vaccination. Decisions regarding distribution of the vaccine should follow public health principles to control the spread of disease globally irrespective of the ability to purchase the vaccine.
- The Public's Role in COVID-19 Vaccination: Planning Recommendations Informed by Design Thinking and the Social, Behavioral, and Communication Sciences
- Best Practices on Vaccine Storage and Handling – and other resources have been added to CDC’s Vaccine Storage and Handling Toolkit to assist vaccination providers with proper storage and handling of COVID-19 vaccines, and to help meet the requirements of the COVID-19 Vaccination Program Provider Agreement. Be sure to sign up for email updates.
- COVID-19 Vaccine Training Module for HCP - a new CDC web-on-demand module, COVID-19 Vaccine Training Module for Healthcare Providers, is now available for providers who will be administering COVID-19 vaccines, and includes information about emergency use authorizations, vaccine safety, vaccine storage, handling, administration, and reporting.
- The COVID-19 Vaccination Program Interim Operational Guidance for Jurisdictions Playbook - serves as an interim playbook for state, territorial, tribal, and local public health programs and their partners on how to plan and operationalize a vaccination response to COVID-19 within their jurisdictions.
Transparency in regard to all COVID-19 vaccines must include public access to information related to production, manufacturing practices, composition, origin, distribution, allocation, efficacy, safety including data, side effects, cautions, warnings, and additional vaccine options. This must be provided in clear, simple detail in various languages by open web content, printed material and mass media public service announcements.
- Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker
- CDC Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Vaccines information webpage
- COVID-19 Vaccination Communication Toolkit — use or adapt these ready-made materials from the CDC to build confidence about COVID-19 vaccination among healthcare staff, educate patients and answer vaccine questions.
It is critical to establish and sustain an infrastructure to support global equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. High income countries must not monopolize the global supply of vaccines. Considerations for essential workers and vulnerable populations must be prioritized while taking into consideration of public health strategies designed to stop the spread of disease.
Understanding vaccine efficacy and effectiveness is pertinent for a sustained reduction in the spread of COVID-19. Vaccine efficacy is measured by how the vaccine ideally performs in regimented protocols and relatively normal hosts; whereas, vaccine effectiveness is retrospective with measuring real world benefits of the vaccine. These concepts are critical measures that impact resources, public trust, the public’s willingness for uptake and health outcomes given the virus’ high transmissibility and mortality index. Both concepts strike at the heart of risk benefit ratios from a public health perspective - not only for healthcare workers and institutions but for the communities they serve.
The balance of safety and efficacy and the perception of personal risk versus overall benefit are at the core of acceptability of immunization practices. The known and potential benefits of a COVID-19 vaccine must outweigh the known and potential risks. ANA strongly recommends that registered nurses be vaccinated against COVID-19. However, we recognize that without a well-established safety profile, the risk benefit analysis could be such that nurses choose not to be vaccinated. We do not believe nurses should be retaliated against if they do not choose to be vaccinated.
- Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)
- COVID-19 Vaccine Training Module: General Overview of Immunization Best Practices for Healthcare Providers (CDC)
Find Fact-Based Answers to Common COVID-19 Vaccine Questions from Leading Experts
Additional Information
ANA President Grant Participates in Phase III Covid-19 Vaccine Clinical Trial
ANA President Ernest Grant has volunteered to participate in a COVID-19 vaccine phase III clinical trial at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) in part because the virus is disproportionately affecting communities of color. "There’s a need for more minority participation in clinical studies like this because COVID-19 is mostly affecting black and brown populations," Grant said in an interview with UNC Health News. "We need to gather enough evidence of whether this vaccine will help in these populations. And if the vaccine is approved, people of color will be more inclined to try it if they know people who look like them participated safely in the trail. Participating in this trial is my way of giving back" Read more here
IAC Launches New COVID-19 Vaccine Web Page Making it Easy to Find Important Resources from CDC and Others
COVID-19 vaccine information continues to expand daily, making it challenging for healthcare professionals to stay up to date with newly released COVID-19 resources for frontline vaccinators. To find the key information you need, the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) has launched its new COVID-19 Vaccine web page at www.immunize.org/covid-19
ANA Advocacy and Legislative Efforts for COVID-19 Vaccines
- September 4, 2020 letter to the National Academy of Medicine Committee on Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus
- August 19, 2020 letter to Operation Warp Speed Regarding Development, Prioritization, and Distribution of COVID-19 Vaccinations
- July 20, 2020 ANA Letter to HHS Secretary Azar Regarding COVID-19 Vaccines
Related ANA Resources
- Find general immunization resources on the ANA Immunize webpage
- Free on Demand webinar - The State of Covid-19 Vaccine Development: What you need to know
- The American Nurses Association is participating in Project Firstline, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) national training collaborative focused on infection prevention and control (IPC). Learn more about it here.
As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, this webpage may be updated as necessary.