[ad_1]
WMC asks DHS to reconsider
MADISON, Wisconsin – The deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine has left some manufacturing workers in the state feeling left out.
As of Monday, about two million people in Wisconsin with high-risk health conditions become eligible for the vaccine under Phase 1C.
Recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put manufacturing workers in Phase 1B, but the National Advisory Committee on Disasters and Medicine did not include the group of about 500,000 such workers in Phase 1B of the state during its deliberations at the start of the vaccine rollout this winter – a time when vaccine supply was much more limited.
“We asked them the question and they agreed that they should not create a group so large that we would not be able to vaccinate them for months and months,” said Julie Willems Van Dijk, deputy secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. .
The CDC also recommended placing “essential workers not included in Phase 1B” in Phase 1C, so Nick Novak of Wisconsin Manufactures & Commerce said the state’s Manufacturers Association is discouraged that this is not. the case.
“We are incredibly disappointed,” said Novak. “Manufacturers have to be part of the equation.”
WMC requests that DHS reconsider.
“They got to work every day to produce PPE, to produce hand sanitizer, to produce test kits,” Novak said. “They were part of the response to COVID-19 and they were deemed essential, but now when it comes to getting the vaccine, the Evers government and DHS have said they are not essential. Simply, they will not be ranked in order of priority. “
At a press conference on Thursday, Willems Van Dijk said that with the current supply situation they have moved to phase 1C knowing that the vaccine will be available to the general population “very soon” by the 1st. may.
Phase 1C only includes people with high risk health conditions. The CDC recommended also including essential workers such as those working in transportation and logistics, food services, housing construction and finance, information technology, communications, energy, law, media, public safety and public health.
Some workers in some of these categories are already eligible in Wisconsin. Public health officials who provide COVID-19 vaccines and tests are included in Phase 1A in Wisconsin. Some transport workers such as bus drivers are included in Phase 1B eligibility, as well as food service workers such as catering workers, but DHS does not include any additional essential worker groups in the phase. phase 1C.
“We just felt that continuing to create eligibility by occupational group is confusing for everyone,” said Willems Van Dijk. “We’re going to get there very soon and many of these employees are now eligible due to chronic health conditions.”
That doesn’t include everyone at Teel Plastics in Baraboo, where workers roll essential products off the line.
“We’ve had people in the factory working, especially making COVID test swabs literally every day 24 hours a day since March 5 of last year,” said Christian Herrild, chief strategy officer for growth at Teel Plastics. “It is absolutely necessary.”
Herrild said it was “a little surprising” to learn that Teel workers as a whole will not be eligible for the vaccine before the rest of the public.
“We are nowhere on the list,” he said. “Especially with some of the work that we do, it would be, I think, really impactful.”
Despite taking “the best possible precautions,” Herrild said, “it’s just not the same level of safety as being able to get everyone vaccinated.”
It would make a big difference, he said, for the workers who enter the building every day.
“They come to work because they think it’s important,” Herrild said. “It would help a lot of our very concerned workers to feel better and more secure about coming into work.”
COPYRIGHT 2021 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE POSTED, BROADCAST, REWRITED OR REDISTRIBUTED.
[ad_2]
Source link