Which essential workers should get vaccinated first? States face a painful decision

When the coronavirus pandemic first started, John Costa, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, lost sleep wondering if the bus drivers that his union represents should be pulled off the job to avoid getting sick. Nine months later, with multiple COVID-19 vaccines on the horizon, a different question keeps Costa up at night: When can his members get vaccinated?

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“I understand doctors and nurses [going first]. We should be at least the next round in essential workers,” Costa told HuffPost. “We’re in a can all day driving, with hundreds of people coming in and out.”

Federal and state officials are undertaking the most ambitious and complex vaccination program in U.S. history, and promising clinical trials so far have buoyed hopes that an end to the pandemic is within sight. But difficult decisions lie ahead about which groups should get the first available doses.

Each state will make its own final decisions on who gets priority, while looking to the federal government for advice. An advisory committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance last week saying frontline health care workers and nursing home residents should be vaccinated first. Officials must soon decide whether other essential workers and elderly people who are not in long-term care should be next in line.

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The former group includes more than 55 million workers in a host of critical industries, from farm workers and bus drivers to grocery store clerks and teachers. A disproportionate number of these workers are people of color, and all of them face varying levels of exposure to COVID-19.

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