The U.S. Government is taking steps to minimize the need to make vaccine allocation decisions by sup­porting efforts to increase domestic influenza vaccine production capacity. Significant funding is be­ing provided to develop new vaccine technologies that allow production of enough pandemic influenza vaccine for any person in the United States who wants to be vaccinated within six months of a pandemic declaration. Until this goal is met, federal, state, local, and tribal governments, communities, and the pri­vate sector will need guidance on who should be vaccinated earlier during the pandemic to best protect our people, communities, and country.