Grocery workers not in phase 1b
Trade group incredulous at vaccine plan omission
Retail food industry leaders say they were stunned to learn that Wisconsin grocery store workers likely won’t be recommended for inclusion on the list of folks who are next in line to receive COVID-19 vaccines.
Now, grocers and their trade group, the Wisconsin Grocers Association, have launched an effort to have those recommendations reconsidered.
The situation arose after the Vaccine Subcommittee of the State Medical Disaster Advisory Committee voted on recommendations for the next tier of people who are to receive vaccinations, known as category 1b.
The subcommittee did not include grocery employees on that list. That essentially means grocery workers would be included with the general public in terms of priority for vaccines, industry officials said.
It’s part of a dizzying process of establishing priorities for who is initially vaccinated as vaccine supplies nationally are limited.
Each state has its own plan for administering the vaccines.
In Wisconsin, the recommendations for 1b included those ages 70 and older (although that could be lowered to 65 based on new federal recommendations) and public-facing essential workers. The category of public-facing workers included non-EMS first responders, education and child care workers and non-frontline health care personnel.
Prisoners and mink farmers were also included in the state subcommittee’s 1b recommendations.
That has left grocers stunned. “They’re incredulous,” Brandon Scholz, president of the Wisconsin Grocers Association, said of his members.
The group’s members employ about 60,000 people in Wisconsin.
“For the last 10 months these people have been doing everything within their power to protect their employees and their customers,” Scholz said. “For 10 months they have been propped up as essential workers ... to feed people.
“After being considered essential for 10 months and being held up as critical to the state getting through a pandemic, there is shock in the industry that they are no longer considered important.”
While the committee and subcommittee make recommendations, it’s ultimately up to Gov. Tony Evers to make the final decision.
The subcommittee is taking public comments about the recommendations until 4 p.m. Monday. (Public comments may be submitted to DHSSDMAC @dhs.wisconsin.gov. Include “vaccine subcommittee” and “Phase 1B” in the email subject line.)
The subcommittee says the vaccine availability is limited and tough decisions must be made about who receives it until doses are more widely available.
“... The large population that met the (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) definition of ‘front line essential worker’ necessitated sub-prioritization within this group to avoid inappropriately delaying vaccine access for other high-priority groups, e.g. those with high risk co-morbid conditions,” according to the proposed Wisconsin recommendations.
The CDC in December put out a set of recommendations that included grocery store workers in the 1b phase.
Scholz said the grocers agree with the CDC recommendations and says the group certainly supports the distribution of vaccines in first phases to health care workers, seniors, medical first responders, etc.
“We’re 110 percent in support of that. No question. They go first,” he said.
But grocery workers need to be included in the next round of vaccines.
“To say to 60,000 grocery store workers ... ‘Nah, you don’t need a vaccination right away. You can wait until this summer or this fall,’ it’s like, Really? Seriously?” Scholz said.
Grocery employees are not only essential to keep everyone fed, but they are among the most public-facing people in the nation’s workforce, grocers say.
“There can be no argument that our store associates are frontline workers who are at great risk interacting with the volume of customers our stores experience each day,” James Hyland, a vice president at the Milwaukee-based Roundy’s Division of The Kroger Co., said in a letter to the subcommittee.
Roundy’s operates 106 Pick ‘n Save and Metro Market stores throughout Wisconsin as well as two food distribution warehouses, a food manufacturing facility and corporate offices. It employs 13,000 people in the state.
About 1.2 million people shop at its stores in Wisconsin every week.
That means store workers face the potential for repeated exposure to COVID-19, according to Hyland.
“Grocery store workers are constantly exposed to the risk of COVID-19 transmission because of the nature of their jobs,” he said.