As the vaccine is being distributed to certain people at this time, farms.com explained the different phases. Phase 1a gave healthcare workers and people who live and work in long term care access to the vaccine. Phase 1b is where agriculture comes into play. For this phase the vaccine is given out to people over 75-years-old and about 30 million frontline workers, which includes food and agriculture employees.
Before the vaccine is available for employees of meatpacking plants, the companies have to make a decision on how to proceed with distribution. They have three different options as to how things will go.
- They can look at becoming an approved vaccine provider. This means that someone on staff at that certain company will get qualified to give the vaccine to employees. This is an option some of the bigger plants are looking at.
- The second option is to work with a local clinic and have a clinic employee come to the plant and give the vaccine to employees.
- The last option is mainly for smaller companies. The plant would need to team up with a clinic nearby and have the employees go to that clinic for the vaccine.
One of the tougher parts of vaccine administration is that some plants have reason to believe only about 20% of their employees are willing to get the vaccine.
