Governor Laura Kelly said yesterday that she is continuing to talk to city and county leaders across the state to tighten their cooperation in dispensing COVID-19 vaccine as it is delivered to the state as Phase 2 of the vaccine rolls out. Click here for the overview of this effort.
Phase 2 guidelines include people 65 years and older as well as high-contact critical workers necessary to maintain systems, assets, and activities that are vital to the state security, the economy or public health, or who interact with large numbers of contacts and job-related COVID-19 exposure.
However, it will be up to individual counties how exactly Phase 2 is rolled out and in what order. Many health experts are recommending those over 65 get the vaccine first. How you sign up will depend on where you live. Sedgwick County, for example, will have an online portal for residents to sign up for the vaccine. Other counties may set up different systems, but the state hopes to provide a site where you easily find how to get the vaccine in your county. Private pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals will also offer the vaccine eventually.
Examples of groups included in Phase 2:
- Firefighters, police officers, first responders, correction officers
- Grocery store workers and food services
- K-12 and childcare workers, including teachers, custodians, drivers and other staff
- Food processing, including meat processing plants
- Large scale aviation manufacturing plants
- Transportation workers
- Workers in the following industries, if they regularly need to be in high risk settings to perform their duties:
- Retail, warehouses and sales outlets
- Agriculture
- Supply of critical services or materials for the COVID response (e.g. PPE)
- The U.S. Postal Service
- Department of Motor Vehicles
What does this mean for the 10,288 individuals employed at Kansas franchised dealerships? While the employment classifications are subjective, we believe your employees are included in Phase 2 as employed in retail trade. You should contact your local county health agency as to how they plan to handle the expansion of those eligible for Phase 2 of the vaccine.
We recommend informing them that your employees were considered essential workers by Governor Kelly when COVID-19 began and that your employees have daily contact with numerous individuals within your community and therefore your employees should be included on the local Phase 2 list as retail and/or transportation workers. (This is consistent with the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) coding for statistical studies and how the industry has been viewed in the past by the CDC.)
To date, 111,000 Kansans have received vaccinations against COVID, which is about 3% of the state’s at-risk population. Secretary of Health and Environment Dr. Lee Norman said while supplies of the vaccine are low, Kansans can go to any county in the state and seek the vaccine, where decisions will be made by local officials.
