With a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee meeting this week to discuss who should follow health care workers as next in line for the coronavirus vaccine, similar debates in California involve dozens of groups jockeying for priority as the state figures out how to allocate its scarce vaccine allotment among essential workers.
In the last week, representatives of more than 100 industries wrote to the state with reasons why their employees should be next to receive the vaccine.
Bobbie Wunsch, a management consultant who was hired to run the weekly meetings of the California Vaccine Advisory Committee, enumerated the applicants.
"Cemetery industry workers, court employees and judicial officers, NASA workers who live in California," she listed. "Public transportation workers, private transportation drivers. Waterfront workers, Amazon workers and airport workers ... "
The way that California’s plan is evolving, none of these groups will be first. The state is leaning toward prioritizing food workers, emergency responders and educators. But it will wait to see what the federal government recommends before making a final decision.
