Priority Plan for Covid-19 Vaccine
• Phase 1A — 2 companies have released vaccinations for the current Covid-19 virus and estimates are 20 million people will receive these in January 2021. This first batch is currently being distributed to front-line healthcare workers and some long-term care residents. These will be dispersed between all 50 states and each state was given control on how to prioritize who should receive it.
• Phase 1B — This phase will focus on elderly Americans and “frontline” essential workers. The elderly includes all people over 75 years of age and “frontline” essential workers include first responders, educators, food and agriculture workers, manufacturing employees, public transit workers, and grocery store workers. Other types of fields may fall in to this category. If you are deemed as an essential business be on the lookout for your employees being eligible for vaccines.
• Phase 1C — Older Americans (65-74), adults with high-risk medical conditions, and “other” essential workers will be next in line to receive vaccinations. Other essential workers are defined as those critical to maintaining infrastructure for the business and include industries in: transportation, food service, shelter and housing, con-struction, financial industry, IT, media, public safety, and legal services.
• Phase 2 and 3 — These phases are not given any specific timeline and will presumably roll out after all of phase 1 has been complete. The focus of these two phases are for those under 65 years of age, non-essential workers, and everyone else who would like one.
• Important Things to Note: — As an employer you can help communicate with your team how vaccine roll outs will occur. Frontloading information like this reassures safety and trust in the workplace. These phases are not concrete and have space for wiggle room to be determined by each state and circumstances. Keep monitoring health websites to stay up to date. And finally, the best thing to do to lower risk of getting diseases is to properly wash your hands, stay a safe distance, be kind.
