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When it Comes to the Vaccine, Uber Considers its Drivers to be Essential Workers

When it Comes to the Vaccine, Uber Considers its Drivers to be Essential Workers

By Yehudit Garmaise

     Yesterday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that New York City should receive 170,000 doses although the Pfizer vaccine, as early as this weekend, though emergency-use approval from the Food and Drug Administration is still pending.

    Gov. Cuomo also explained that he would follow the guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control, which recommend that nursing home residents and staffs and high-risk frontline healthcare workers will receive the first dosages of vaccines that have been shown in three phases of studies to be 95% effective, and at first, will be in short supply.

    The next in line to be vaccinated against COVID-19 will be other essential workers, such as teachers, police officers, and firefighters.

   However, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, argues that Gov. Cuomo should add to that second category of essential workers, right after firefighters: Uber drivers.

   In a letter that asks the governor to "recognize the essential nature of [Uber drivers’] work,” Khosrowshahi  said that she wants to ensure Uber drivers get the immunizations "quickly, easily and for free."

    "Public health experts have recognized that rideshare drivers and food delivery people, including the 213,655 in New York who have earned money on the Uber platform during the pandemic, should, as frontline workers, receive prioritized access to the vaccine,” Khosrowshahi wrote. "Over the last nine months, these workers have been a lifeline to their communities."

  Khosrowshahi also argued that Uber drivers are essential workers because they can drive people who need rides their vaccination appointments, and perhaps less persuasively, that the drivers can help spread information and awareness about the vaccine.

    "My earnest hope is that Uber can continue to be a resource for the people of your state in the coming months," Khosrowshahi  wrote to the governor. "Together, I hope, as New York finalizes its distribution plans, we can use our technology to accelerate the end of this public health crisis and the beginning of the economic recovery to come."


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