Essential Workers in NC will get COVID Vaccine Priority: Do You Qualify?
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper outlined an updated plan for who gets the COVID-19 vaccine and when prioritizing older adults and frontline essential workers as the first to get them. The new plan prioritizes the order of vaccinations to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
The three groups to be vaccinated, in order, are:
Group 1: People 75 years and older, no matter what underlying conditions they have or don’t have.
Group 2: Health care workers who work with patients and frontline essential workers who are 50 or older.
Group 3: Health care workers who work with patients and frontline essential workers of any age who have not been vaccinated yet.
So who counts on as the Frontline Essential worker in North Carolina.
- First responders like firefighters and police officers
- Grocery store workers
- Childcare workers
- Teachers and education support staff
- Corrections officers
- Food and agricultural workers
- U.S. Postal Service workers
- Manufacturing workers
- Public transit workers
Essential workers are defined by N.C. DHHS and the CDC as:
- Transportation and logistics workers
- Foodservice workers
- Shelter and housing workers, including construction
- Finance workers, like bank tellers
- Information technology workers
- Water and wastewater workers
- Media workers
- Public safety workers like engineers
- Public health workers
- Communications workers
- Energy workers
- Workers in the legal field
The next phases are Phase 3, which includes students, and Phase 4, which is anyone who wants the vaccine. The vaccine is not yet available to children younger than age 16.
