Dive Brief:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to recommend that frontline essential workers, as well as people age 75 and older, be next in line to receive the coronavirus vaccine. The recommendations were made by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Sunday, which voted in favor 13-1.
ACIP voted that the roughly 30 million Americans that fall into the frontline essential workers group, including those in food production and manufacturing, should be in Phase 1b. Then all other essential workers, such as those in foodservice and construction, should be in Phase 1c. If CDC Director Robert Redfield accepts the recommendation, then these groups will likely be able to get the vaccine after healthcare workers and nursing home residents, who are now being vaccinated.
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Uber has spent years and millions of dollars making sure its workers aren’t classified as such and insisting it’s not responsible for those people’s health care. Now the company is pushing for its “earners” the word it uses to refer to its drivers and delivery people so as not to call them workers to get priority access to the Covid-19 vaccine.
It’s hardly alone in lobbying public health officials and states to put its people near the top of the list.
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For months, food companies and trade groups have been sending letters and lobbying state and federal officials to secure vaccine prioritization for food workers in manufacturing plants. Worker absenteeism remains a concern in manufacturing facilities, posing a threat to the maintenance of consistent inventories of life-sustaining products, Michael Gruber, vice president of regulatory and government affairs at the Consumer Brands Association, wrote in a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Without early vaccinations, the CPG sector risks the absence of skilled workers due to illness and the subsequent negative impacts on the supply chain.
Last Friday night, the FDA granted emergency authorization to Pfizer and BioNTech s coronavirus vaccine, and the first doses of the vaccine arrived on Monday. Then on Tuesday, the FDA cleared the path for the second vaccine, made by Moderna, to be authorized.
December 16, 2020
With front-line health workers and nursing home residents and staff expected to get the initial doses of Covid-19 vaccines, the thornier question is figuring out who goes next.
The answer will likely depend on where you live.
While an influential federal advisory board is expected to make its recommendations later this month, state health departments and governors will make the call on who gets access to a limited number of vaccines this winter.
As a result, it’s been a free-for-all in recent weeks as manufacturers, grocers, bank tellers, dentists, and drive-share companies all jostle to get a spot near the front of the line.