◆ Some GOP states vaccinating elderly before essential workers.

Texas, Florida and some other Republican-led states are bucking federal advice to provide early doses of the new coronavirus vaccine to front-line workers, choosing instead to prioritize the elderly — a disconnect already exposing fissures in the nationwide immunization campaign.

Federal recommendations emphasized providing vaccine to grocery store employees, transit staffers and other front-line workers, along with people 75 and older. Officials in Florida and Texas, where 50 million people live, are moving ahead with a different strategy, offering vaccine to a broader segment of their elderly populations and asking front-line workers to wait.

The choices reflect distinct needs in a diverse country where the coronavirus has killed unevenly, but they also highlight an emerging patchwork that could pose obstacles to the national effort to corral the pandemic. The divergence is coming into view as states face delays in the administration of vaccine doses, with each operating on its own timeline based on the capacities of local health departments and hospital systems.

Fewer than 20 percent of the 11.5 million doses distributed by the federal government had been put into people’s arms by the beginning of this week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The differences in priorities also carry political undertones that recall varying approaches to mask mandates and stay-athome orders. Republican-controlled states are breaking most openly with the expert recommendations.

“We are not going to put young, healthy workers ahead of our elderly, vulnerable population,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, vowed last week in an address at The Villages, the nation’s largest retirement community. A top infectious-diseases official in Texas, Imelda Garcia, said focusing on adults 65 and older and people with chronic conditions “will protect the most vulnerable populations.” In Ohio, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine is adopting a similar approach but also including school staffers in the early phase, emphasizing the need to return to in-person learning.

Medical workers and residents and staffers at long-term care facilities constitute the first tier in virtually every instance, in line with guidance released in early December by the panel advising the CDC. The question now confronting state leaders: Who comes next?

The expert panel of federal advisers met again before Christmas, seeking to balance protecting workers whose jobs put them in harm’s way with shielding those most likely to suffer complications from the virus or die of COVID-19. The panel recommended putting people 75 and older and essential front-line workers in the next priority group.