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 An independent advisory panel to the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention on Sunday voted that 30 million essential
workers are next in line for vaccines. Those vaccinations are
expected to start in January or February.
While states often follow CDC guidelines, they generally have broad
discretion when it comes to vaccine distribution.
The panel listed categories including first responders, teachers,
and workers in food and agriculture, manufacturing, grocery stores,
public transit and at the U.S. Postal Service.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was faced
with the tough choice of ranking a vast group of essential workers
who, according to a list by the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, make up nearly 70% of the U.S. labor force.
The ACIP recommendations, which still need to be adopted by the CDC,
come months after states formulated their own distribution plans,
which have been disseminated to local health departments in
preparation for the vaccine. The state-level plans differ from each
other and from the federal guidelines.
It also is unclear what procedures, if any, are in place for
individuals to prove they belong to a high-priority group. One
industry group said on Monday it would offer its members a model
letter to give to employees, attesting to their "essential" status.
The United States has two authorized COVID-19 vaccines, one from
Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE and another from Moderna Inc. The
vaccines are rolling out as hospitals reach peak capacity and deaths
have exceeded 315,000.
The lack of coordinated plans has led dozens of industry groups and
individual companies, including Amazon.com Inc and Uber Technologies
Inc, to lobby state and federal officials to move their workers
closer to the front of the line.
Several states including New York, Massachusetts and Michigan do not
follow the panel's recommendations and have instead drafted their
own list of essential workers to be prioritized for a vaccine. Some
also prioritize people with pre-existing medical conditions, who
were not accounted for by the advisory panel.
Massachusetts, for example, prioritizes Uber and Lyft Inc ride-hail
drivers in the same phase as grocery-store workers, while it does
not mention manufacturing at all.
PIECEMEAL APPROACH
Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi in a letter to
President-elect Joe Biden on Monday called for more federal guidance
once Biden takes office on Jan. 20.
"We ask that you continue to provide federal leadership to state and
local leaders and reinforce the need to provide early vaccine access
for essential critical infrastructure workers, including rideshare
drivers and delivery people," the letter read.
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 Some industry groups, including
the Food Industry Association, which represents
food retailers including Albertsons Companies
Inc, and the American Federation of Teachers, a
labor union, welcomed the ACIP's recommendation
and the inclusion of their workers.
But some groups also cautioned that despite
their inclusion, the practical question of how
vaccines will reach workers' arms was still far
from clear amid the patchwork of state rules.
The Consumer Brands Association representing food, beverage,
personal care and household product companies including Procter &
Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive Co, said it expected hybrid solutions,
from partnerships with pharmacies to hiring outside healthcare
service providers.
"It's for this reason that nothing has changed about our concerns
about the piecemeal state vaccination playbooks," a spokeswoman
said.
The spokeswoman also said it remained unclear how workers could
verify they were indeed "essential," adding that Consumer Brands
would provide its members with a template they can put on company
letterhead confirming essential-worker status, similar to letters
distributed during curfews and lockdowns so employees could get to
work.
In North Carolina, which has one of the most extensive vaccine
distribution plans, hospitals could submit lists of people eligible
for the first vaccines to a central data system. But a spokeswoman
for the state's health department did not immediately respond to
whether the same system would allow companies to submit the names of
non-healthcare essential workers.
Other industry groups, like the National Waste & Recycling
Association, which represents companies including Waste Management
Inc and Republic Services Inc, said it would continue pushing to
prioritize its workers for a vaccine, despite not being included in
the ACIP recommendations.
The group on Monday asked CDC Director Robert Redfield, in a letter
seen by Reuters, to include the waste and recycling industry in the
next vaccination phase across the country.
Kirk Sander, the group's chief of staff and vice president of safety
and standards, said one of its members, a large medical waste
company, saw local officials prioritize its workers, who pick up
waste from hospital wards, for a COVID-19 vaccine in some counties,
but not in others.
"It gives weight to that conversation if the CDC weighs in," Sander
said of Monday's letter.
(Reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; Editing by Joe White and
Matthew Lewis)
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