WASHINGTON: The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has included journalists among essential workers who need to receive the Covid-19 vaccine on priority.

The official US health agency has included journalists and other frontline media workers in its 1c category of those essential workers who have “a high risk” of getting infected by this deadly virus because of the nature of their job.

The virus has already killed 2.53 million people across the world and infected more than 114m people. The United States remains the worst affected with 512,000 deaths and 28.6m infections.

Last month, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunisation and Practices voted that frontline broadcasters will be included in phase 1c of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, which began in some states in February. Most states, however, start vaccinating journalists in March.

In the first phase, known as 1a, vaccines were given to frontline medical workers and those in nursing homes. In phase 1b, adults 75 and older and frontline essential workers started receiving the vaccine.

The 1b category included first responders (firefighters and police), teachers, food and agriculture, manufacturing, grocery stores, postal workers, public transit workers and prison workers and prisoners.

Others in phase 1c include adults 65-76 and people 16-64 with high-risk medical conditions, as well as a second group of frontline essential workers, which includes transportation and logistics, food service, construction, finance, IT, communication, the energy sector, the legal sector, public safety, water and wastewater industries and frontline media workers.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2021