Health care providers in Washington hope this will be the week the state announces which people will be in the next group eligible for Covid vaccines.
The so-called 1-B group is widely expected to include older people, especially those with underlying health conditions. It may also include people considered frontline essential workers.
Cassie Sauer from the Washington State Hospital Association says health care systems need to plan the logistics of getting those people vaccinated. She says elders will be easy to find because many are in hospitals and long-term care facilities.
“The group that’s probably going to be harder to find and schedule is staff at daycares or grocery store workers or bus drivers," people whose information isn’t collated in a way that makes them easy to find and contact, Sauer said.
“The faster we can get that guidance, the faster we can plan, even if it’s getting guidance with the knowledge that this might start in two weeks or a month so that we can start reaching out to, for example, there’s a Washington State Childcare Association, those associations, so we can talk about how they can best organize themselves to come in and get vaccinated.”
The Pfizer vaccine has now been in some communities for as long as three weeks. Some health care systems in Washington say they’ll begin giving second doses to their highest-risk employees this week.