Police, firefighters, teachers will be next in line for COVID-19 vaccine

12 min readDec 21, 2020

Police, firefighters, teachers and grocery workers will be among those next in line for a COVID-19 vaccine, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel decided Sunday.

The committee voted 13–1 to recommend that Phase 1b include people 75 and older and front-line essential workers. Phase 1c will include people 65 to 74 and people 16 to 64 who have high-risk medical conditions, along with other essential workers.

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“My hope is that these short-term recommendations will support efficiency and equity in every phase of vaccination until we can get to the time when all individuals have access to safe and effective vaccines in the U.S. and worldwide,” said Dr. Grace Lee, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and committee member.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices began its deliberations Sunday morning and spent the day discussing who would follow front-line health care workers and people in long-term care facilities in receiving vaccines, a second phase that could begin in February. The committee is responsible for recommending who gets what vaccines when.

They made difficult decisions that were based on getting a vaccine as quickly as possible to people at the greatest risk of contracting COVID-19 and those who will suffer the most severe outcomes, said Dr. Sharon Fry of the Saint Louis University Medical School and a committee member.

“There are no perfect recommendations. and people will continue to become ill with this disease and die from the disease until there are adequate vaccines. So please, I will plead also for our leaders and the government to move quickly on this and support this effort,” she said.

There are now two COVID-19 vaccines in use in the United States. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 11. The Moderna vaccine was authorized Friday and should begin arriving at hospitals on Monday.

The United States has created a phased vaccination plan for the coronavirus because there won’t be enough vaccine in the beginning of the rollout.

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Phase 1a includes front-line health care workers and people in long-term care facilities.

“Essential workers are at high risk because of exposure, by virtue of being in contact with others, in performing their duties. Prevention of disease in essential workers may reduce transmission to others,” said Dr. Kathleen Dooling, a CDC physician who is co-lead on the advisory committee’s COVID-19 Vaccines Working Group.

These workers are considered essential to the functioning of society and are at substantially higher risk of exposure to SARS-Co/V-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. They make up about 30 million people among these groups:

First responders such as firefighters, police
Teachers, support staff, day care workers
Food and agriculture workers
Manufacturing workers
Correction workers
U.S. Postal Service workers
Public transit workers
Grocery store workers

Tho essential workers in Phase 1c make up about 57 million people and would include:

Public health workers
Transportation and logistics workers
Food service workers
Construction workers
Finance workers
IT & Communications workers
Energy workers
Media workers
Legal workers
Public safety engineers
Water and wastewater workers

Medical conditions with sufficient evidence to have been associated with severe COVID-19 disease include:

Police, firefighters, teachers will be next in line for COVID-19 vaccine

Written by Nasrinmnc