Agency’s approach to assessing real-world evidence for effectiveness will be guided by three key principles: fitness for use of the underlying data, adequacy of the study design, and satisfactory monitoring and data collection.

First group to receive vaccine would comprise health care personnel and residents of long-term care facilities; next in line are non-health care essential workers, who would take priority over adults with high-risk medical conditions and those ages 65 years and older, according to the CDC advisory committee’s proposed allocation framework.

Although US FDA wants sponsors to maintain blinded Phase III follow-up as long as possible after emergency use authorization or licensure, vaccine researcher Larry Corey says it will become ‘untenable’ to keep individuals in placebo arm once they qualify for vaccine access under the allocation framework.