State needs full vaccine priority list
Sooner or later, the state of California and Bay Area counties will provide a more detailed priority list for who should get COVID-19 vaccinations. Sooner would be better.
No priority list will be flawless, and there are no guarantees that the government will be able to deliver the number of vaccines as promised. But businesses and residents would benefit from knowing where they stand and being able to plan for the future. Continued uncertainty only leads to greater anxiety.
Earlier this month, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said that health care workers and nursing home residents would be first in line for the vaccines in what is being called Phase 1A. California has an estimated 2.4 million health care workers and 400,000 nursing home residents.
The panel recommended Sunday that Phase 1B would include people 75 and older and frontline essential workers. It defined those workers as “first responders (e.g., firefighters and police officers), corrections officers, food and agricultural workers, U. S. Postal Service workers, manufacturing workers, grocery store workers, public transit workers, and those who work in the education sector (teachers and support staff members) as well as child care workers.”
The panel also announced that the third phase of COVID-19 shots (Phase 1C) would be given to people aged 65-74 years, people aged 16- 64 with high-risk medical conditions, and the essential workers not recommended in the second phase of vaccinations.
But no guidelines have been provided for the millions of Californians who are not included in those three phases.
States are permitted to set their own priorities. The California Health and Human Services Agency and the California Department of Public Health’s advisory committee has said that the state will largely follow the federal government’s recommendations. The state panel is expected to announce before the end of the year who will be on the state’s list of essential workers. The lobbying, as expected, has been intense from various special interest groups, including law enforcement officers, teachers and food and agricultural workers.
One of the hottest political debates is likely to be over whether the more than 200,000 inmates in California’s prisons and jails should be given priority over lawabiding residents. The Associated Press reports that one in every five state and federal prisoners in the United States has tested positive for the coronavirus, a rate more than four times as high as the general population. Public health officials make a solid argument that inmates should be vaccinated to prevent further spread of COVID-19 to inmates, their families, prison guards and surrounding communities.
The people making the decisions on vaccination priorities have an unenviable task. It’s been challenging enough for health care facilities to prioritize which of their workers should receive the first vaccinations. The federal, state and county health officials making these tough calls should communicate them as soon as possible so that residents and businesses can go about planning how best to get through the pandemic.
The people making the desisions on vassination priorities have an unenviarle task.