By Alan Wolf, YSN
The National Retail Federation (NRF), the world’s largest retail trade association, has petitioned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to include retail workers in the early phases of COVID-19 vaccine distribution.
The NRF’s argument: Retailers have been on the front lines throughout the pandemic, serving customers and keeping their communities safe. Collectively they have invested billions of dollars to provide their teams with personal protective equipment (PPE) and training, and to change up their business models to meet and often exceed state, local and federal health and safety guidelines.
In a letter to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, NRF president/CEO Matthew Shay argued that “It is critically important [that] those working in our nation’s stores, distribution centers, warehouses and throughout the retail ecosystem are among the early recipients of the COVID-19 vaccine.” For BrandSource members, that ecosystem would include off-site employees like delivery teams and service technicians.
See: BrandSource’s Delivery & Service Safe Practices Guide
Added Shay, “The retail industry directly employs 32 million Americans, and we cannot lose sight of the importance of keeping them and the consumers they serve safe from this deadly disease.”
