U.S. News & World Report: For Many Seniors, Whether They Get a COVID-19 Vaccine May Depend on Their Families (January 14, 2020)

As seniors begin to get offered COVID-19 vaccines, some families are finding that the burden of getting one into the arm of an elderly loved one is falling entirely on them. When the Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced that states should expand their vaccination programs to more of their 65+ populations, older adults were left to figure things out for themselves. Beyond simply prioritizing these groups, there’s been no nationwide response specifically targeted at creating access for seniors, and state-by-state programs vary with much of the vaccination distribution happening on a county-level, leaving families to figure it out.

“Even though it’s so important for everyone to get vaccinated, I think we’ll still see some of those cracks in the system,” Chan says. His organization says it has recommended mobile COVID-19 testing sites to policymakers, which can be deployed to seniors who are homebound or in low-income housing settings.