CDC panel prioritizes transit workers for COVID-19 shots

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices earlier this week approved interim recommendations that call for public transit workers to be in the second priority group to get the COVID-19 vaccine. 

The vaccine prioritization recommends frontline essential workers — including public transit workers — to be in Phase 1B, the vaccination phase after health care personnel, according to a CDC presentation.

Phase 1B could start in January.

The Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) commended the recommendation, and has joined a coalition of California public transportation agencies in asking the state, which determines priority for distribution, to also include public transit workers as among the first to receive the vaccine, OCTA officials said in a press release.