Several federal agencies have reached out to their workforces to notify them of their eligibility for prioritized COVID-19 vaccine access, but have offered little in the way of detail for how to actually secure a dose.
Employees have raised concerns that their agencies are not adequately advocating for them, though officials have said they have taken appropriate steps to notify state and local public health departments of the essential nature of their frontline workforces. Few federal agencies have received direct distributions of the vaccine for internal use and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is largely allowing states to make their own determinations on the order of inoculations.
That has left agencies in an awkward position, as they communicate to frontline staff that they have pushed states to include the workers in Phase 1B of their distribution plans without significant means to actually influence that decision making. Employees said they felt as if their agencies left them to fend for themselves rather than fighting to ensure vaccine availability.
At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, a contingent of employees received an email last month explaining the agency “may share” their names with state and local partners “to assist in vaccine distribution.”
“You are receiving this message because you have been tentatively identified by your line or staff office as a candidate for priority vaccination due to the nature of your on-site mission-essential work,” the agency stated.
While the message said officials would follow up with additional details, one employee said there has been no further communication on the subject. NOAA said it identified “a list of candidates” to protect its workforce and ensure continuity of its mission, but the employee said the agency’s approach has left him and his colleagues ..
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