California state vaccine advisers are considering vaccinating the state’s teachers, firefighters, and grocery store and restaurant employees next after the initial doses of the coronavirus vaccine.
First recipients of the vaccine
There are 2.4 million Californians in the first group of high-priority recipients; in Phase 1a were health care workers and long-term care facility residents. Officials are set to discuss who they want to include in Phase 1b of the inoculations.
The next group that would most likely receive the vaccination is essential workers, including 1.4 million people who work in child care and education. The plan would also include about 3.4 million that work in agriculture and food jobs and nearly 1.1 million people who work in non-healthcare roles in emergency services.
On Tuesday, the California Health and Human Services Secretary, Mark Ghaly, said that they would issue guidelines for the next people who would receive the vaccination in the “next week or so.” The state Community Vaccine Advisory Committee is scheduled to address the matter on Wednesday during a public meeting.
The chief medical officer of Watts Healthcare Corp., a Los Angeles health care provider, Dr. Oliver Brooks, said that nearly two-thirds of the state’s workforce, which is about 12 million people, are considered essential workers. During the public meeting on December 16, the committee considered including the K-12 and university personnel, child care workers, firefighters, restaurants, police officers, and food manufacturing, restaurants, and pharmacy workers.
Planned distribution for second inoculations
The two committees cooperate with one another in assisting state officials with vaccine policies. They are assessing several factors in deciding which group to include in the next round of inoculations. The factors include occupational exposure to the coronavirus disease, the societal and economic impact of their careers, and equity.
Over the weekend, a U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) federal advisory committee suggested that the next group should include essential frontline workers, teachers, police officers, grocery store employees, firefighters, and people who were 75 years old and above, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
State officials have some freedom when coming up with their own recommendations about the issue. However, the final decision would still rest on the federal committee. They would most likely release similar recommendations with slights changes.
Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine’s first shipments was delivered to California last week and has already inoculated about 70,258 people. Additionally, Moderna’s vaccine began to be distributed to hospitals and local health departments on Monday.
