'Frontline essential workers' expected eligible for vaccine as soon as tomorrow

Health department to start taking appointments on Thursday; Hospitals could start sooner

Good morning! Today is Tuesday, March 2, 2021, and we’re coming to you with HOT BREAKING NEWS.

This special edition of The Charlotte Ledger is sponsored by Carroll Financial, one of the Charlotte region’s oldest and largest family-owned, independent financial planning and investment management firms:

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With arrival of new doses, governor expected to accelerate vaccination timeline; scramble for appointments to heat up

(Hakan Nural/Unsplash)

Gov. Roy Cooper is expected to accelerate the timetable for administering the Covid vaccine to the next group of North Carolinians, with “frontline essential workers” eligible to make appointments as soon as Wednesday.

The anticipated change in vaccine eligibility, reported this morning by Raleigh TV station WRAL and widely expected among industry sources The Ledger has spoken with, would mean that as many as 700,000 additional people in the state could start scrambling to line up appointments.

Cooper is expected to hold a news conference today at 2 p.m. to announce the change. Under the state’s most recent vaccine plan, frontline essential workers were supposed to become eligible on March 10. But the approval of a third vaccine, from Johnson & Johnson, means that healthcare providers and health departments will have more doses than they anticipated.

The governor’s new plan would allow counties to determine when they will allow the newly eligible group to start receiving the vaccine.

Mecklenburg County health director Gibbie Harris said at a news conference Tuesday: “We have had conversations with the state about this. The challenge with the governor making decisions about when to open things up is he has to look at the whole state.”

Mecklenburg is still working to vaccine people in earlier groups, including teachers, healthcare workers and people aged 65+.

Open for booking: Mecklenburg County’s health department said Tuesday that it will begin taking appointments for frontline essential workers beginning Thursday at 8:30 a.m. Those appointments, which start March 10, can be booked online at StarMed.Care or by calling the county’s Covid hotline at 980-314-9400.

Doctors from Atrium Health and Novant Health said at a news conference Tuesday that they would follow state guidance, and that while appointments are booked for weeks, they could administer the vaccine sooner if more becomes available, either by appointment or at pop-up events to be held later this month.

Who’s eligible?

Until now, the vaccine is supposed to be available only to:

• Healthcare workers

• Long-term care staff and residents

• Adults aged 65+

• School and childcare workers

The next group, called Group 3, consists of a much broader range of employees, classified as “frontline essential workers,” including:

• Restaurant workers

• Grocery workers

• Clergy

• Police, firefighters, jail workers and security officers

• Social workers

• Workers who manufacture critical supplies

• College instructors and support staff

• Workers in meatpacking, food processing, food distribution and agriculture

• Mail carriers

• Elected officials

• Court workers

• Veterinarians

• Homeless shelter staff

• Public transit workers

• Transportation maintenance and repair technicians

• Division of Motor Vehicles workers

After that: After frontline essential workers, the remaining 2 groups are “adults at high risk for exposure and increased risk of severe illness” (Group 4) — which includes “workers in transportation and logistics, water and wastewater, food service, shelter and housing (e.g., construction), finance (e.g., bank tellers), information technology and communications, energy, legal, media, public safety (e.g., engineers) and public health workers” — and then everyone else. Group 4 could be eligible as soon as March 24, according to industry sources.

How to get it: If you are eligible, there are several different ways to score an appointment. Atrium Health, Novant Health and the county health department have so far received most of the doses locally, although pharmacies and other medical providers are starting to receive doses, too. To date, the process has favored the persistent. New appointments open all the time.

Although healthcare providers are likely to ask screening questions, administration of the vaccine is based largely on the honor system, as there are few resources dedicated to policing eligibility. Some employers have generated letters confirming their workers’ eligibility, although that is not considered necessary.

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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire; Reporting intern: David Griffith