Businesses in the country step up push to get their workers higher up the list
Ahead of shipments of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine arriving at US hospitals from Monday, calls have been made for diverse workers-from Uber drivers and bank tellers to pharmacists and makers of household goods like toilet paper-to be considered essential service providers entitled to early doses.
"Everybody believes that their own workers should be first in line" for vaccine doses, said Jeff Levin-Scherz, co-leader of Willis Towers Watson's health management practice.
An expert panel advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week overwhelmingly recommended that the first doses go to the nation's 21 million healthcare workers and 3 million residents of long-term care facilities. They fall into what has been called Phase 1a of distribution of the vaccine, which Pfizer developed with BioNTech.