SDMAC to review the recommendations of the Subcommittee on Vaccines
MADISON, Wis. The demand for the COVID-19 vaccine exceeds the supply, but a state committee of experts is moving closer to deciding who they can be eligible for according to the following vaccinations.
The state has already decided that police, firefighters and people aged 65 and older should be part of the next distribution phase, Tier 1B, as vaccinations of health workers and long-term residents and workers continue as part of 1A.
The Disaster and Medical Advice Advisory Committee makes recommendations to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services on what other groups should be included in 1B.
Last week, the committee opened a set of recommendations for public comment and received nearly 5,000. A subcommittee on vaccines from SDMAC met Wednesday morning to discuss this.
“It’s an incredible outflow of interest and participation,” said Dr. Jonathan Temte, a co-chair of the subcommittee, said.
As the state has recently been eligible for vaccinations for 65 people and older, committee members have focused on other groups, such as who they will consider as essential workers facing public eligibility for Level 1B.
Nearly 1,800 public comments are supported, including food industry and grocery workers, who were not previously part of SDMAC’s Phase 1B recommendations.
“We agree that it is essential workers who maintain the function of society,” said Dr. Edward Belongia, a member of the subcommittee, said during the meeting.
They chose to include grocery, food production, hunger relief and agricultural workers in recommendations they would send to the full committee, along with education and child care workers, who according to public comments also received “overwhelming support”.
The subcommittee also chose to include public transport workers in 1B, which would mean bus drivers but not taxi drivers, stock workers or aircraft service workers, although a minority would also include it.
Public utilities and 911 operators were also included in the subcommittee’s recommendations. They continued to support the state’s approximately 300 mink farmers, citing biosafety risks due to virus transmission between humans and minks, and for people living in urban areas.
This includes prisoners, although more than 70 public comments that have been reviewed have shown opposition, ‘some very vehemently’. The subcommittee still chose to include people who are incarcerated, noting their right to health care and the risk of COVID spread.
Some in the public called for the inclusion of veterinarians and librarians, who did not receive majority support from the subcommittee. Although there were more than 500 comments to include people with risk factors and medical conditions in 1B, most in the subcommittee thought the group was too large to delay vaccination for other groups. Belongia expressed his opposition.
‘Every issue that is addressed is compelling, so I can not agree with any group in this. It bothers me that some people who are at high risk of dying from COVID-19 are not included in this group. For me, this is a very important consideration, “said Belongia. “We protect many essential workers, and they deserve to be protected, but we do not protect people with cancer, we do not protect people with heart disease, kidney disease, etc.”
The members of the subcommittee did include family care and IRIS recipients in 1B.
“A challenge we face before the committee is that every group they look at has valid reasons why they are on the list to receive vaccinations before the general public does,” said Julie Willems Van Dijk. , deputy secretary of DHS, said. “We do not have enough vaccine to meet the needs of all the people.”
SDMAC meets Thursday to review the latest recommendations of the vaccine subcommittee, and then the state has the final verdict.
“We will study the list very carefully, and we will look at the analysis by group, and we will be determined,” said Willems Van Dijk. “Then we need to think carefully about what time we need to add additional groups to this pool of eligible people.”
If the subcommittee’s recommendations exist, Phase 1B and the current Phase 1A will make up approximately 45% of the state’s adult population.
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