A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel voted 13-1 Sunday to put “frontline essential workers” and people 75 years of age and older next in line to be eligible to receive a vaccine against Covid-19.
That so-called phase 1b group is estimated to include about 49 million people, or nearly 15% of Americans, according to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The committee included frontline essential workers such as firefighters, police officers, teachers, corrections officers and others in the phase 1b group, but relegated “other essential workers” to phase 1c.
The full list of frontline essential workers covered by the recommendation also includes all educational staff, including daycare workers, food and agricultural workers, manufacturing workers, U.S. postal service employees, public transit workers and grocery store workers, according to ACIP’s provided list. These workers “are in sectors essential to the functioning of society and are at substantially higher risk of exposure” to Covid, ACIP said.
“I would like to note that the persons 75 years and older represent 8% of the population, 25% of hospitalizations and have a very high death rate. Frontline essential workers have high exposures. They include a disproportionate share of racial and ethnic persons who also have a disproportionate share of hospitalizations,” Dr. Katherine Poehling, a member of the committee, said after the vote.
Dr. Henry Bernstein of Northwell Cohen Children’s Medical…
