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A plan to put seniors after educators and school staff has drawn scrutiny among officials calling for the state to base its priority decisions on public health data.

Oregon is one of a handful of states that have put dentists lower in priority order, despite the CDC advisory board's recommendation that all front-line workers get priority.

The state’s Vaccine Advisory Committee has decided the state should add seven more groups to the priority list that already includes nearly 1.4 million people.

Gov. Kate Brown said: "This is a deception on a national scale. Oregon’s seniors, teachers, all of us, were depending on the promise of Oregon’s share of the federal reserve of vaccines being released to us."

The vaccines have a short shelf life, which forces clinicians to anticipate the exact number of doses they’ll need each day. If they don’t get it right, doses may go to waste.