Prioritize Frontline Essential Workers for COVID Vaccine

For the last year, essential workers - such as grocery store clerks, bus drivers, and people in food service - have been working through a pandemic to ensure that families can continue to eat and stay alive. We are truly public servants, risking infection from the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its mutations in service of the general public. Workers can’t control other people, such as those we interact with daily who do not take this pandemic seriously.

We are tired of putting on a friendly tone to ask customers, coworkers, and managers to please pull their masks over their noses. We are exhausted from going to work day after day, not knowing if today might be the day we bring home the virus that could kill us or our family members.

Our field is diverse; we are Black, disabled, immigrant, indigenous, Latinx, parents, students, working class. The federal government’s National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness calls for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. We urge you to listen to experts who say that essential workers should be vaccinated now. Consider our sacrifices over the past year, and commit to repaying us by prioritizing us for the vaccine.