Should teachers get COVID vaccine now? NC says not until seniors get their shots.
Updated Feb. 10 with news on when teachers will be eligible for vaccinations.
North Carolina is not joining the majority of states that are prioritizing giving COVID-19 vaccinations to teachers now.
Education Week reports that, as of Monday, at least 26 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have made some or all teachers eligible to receive the coronavirus vaccine. The North Carolina Association of Educators and several other advocacy groups have called on Gov. Roy Cooper to move school employees up the state’s vaccination priority list.
Some individual North Carolina school districts have worked with county health departments to begin vaccinating their employees.
But most school employees are still waiting for their shots.
“As teachers across the state return to the classroom, it is essential that they receive the vaccine as soon as possible,” NCAE says in an online petition that has received more than 20,000 signatures.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends vaccinating healthcare personnel and people in long-term care facilities first. Next comes frontline essential workers (which includes school employees) and people 75 and older, followed by people 65 to 74. States don’t have to follow those recommendations.
The state says it’s prioritizing giving the limited supply of doses it has on those who are most at risk. This means vaccinating people 65 and older before teachers.
“We want to get people 65 and older vaccinated because that’s where we’re seeing 83% of the deaths right now in North Carolina from COVID-19,” Cooper said at a news conference last week.
But Cooper announced that teachers, other K-12 school-based employees and childcare workers will be able to begin getting vaccinations starting Feb. 24.
Safe to reopen schools now?
Last week, Cooper said school districts should reopen for in-person instruction as soon as possible. Some districts are still only offering online classes due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The state Senate has approved a bill that would require school districts to offer in-person instruction this school year. The House is considering the legislation.
Susan Gale Perry, chief deputy secretary, at the state Department of Health and Human Services, pointed to how Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new CDC director, said that “safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated.”
Gale Perry also told the State Board of Education last week that schools “are relatively low risk settings” and what’s really critical is following prevention and mitigation measures.
Instead of changing the vaccination priority, Cooper said the state is looking to get more doses.
“We’re continuing to push the (Biden) Administration hard to get more vaccine in North Carolina,” Cooper said. “We want to get to teachers and other essential workers as quickly as we possibly can.”
But John deVille, a social studies teacher at Franklin High School in Macon County, says state leaders are taking a big risk on data that isn’t as conclusive as they make it out to be.
“We should not be back in school until we’re vaccinated, period,” deVille said in an interview Monday.
Other states give teachers vaccine priority
Some states have opted to begin vaccinating teachers now.
The Public School Forum of North Carolina says the Tar Heel State should join those states that have decided that school employees shouldn’t have to wait to be vaccinated.
“Since March 2020, educators, administrators, and support personnel have made remarkable efforts to create innovative learning opportunities for their students, as they too endure the impacts of living through a historic global pandemic,” Mary Ann Wolf, president of the Public School Forum, said in a statement.
“North Carolina has the opportunity to demonstrate its support for the health and safety of its educators and school personnel by ensuring they have prioritized access to available COVID-19 vaccines.”
Insisting teachers can be in close quarters among students with minimal distancing is dangerous without vaccinating them, according to Keith Poston, president of WakeEd Partnership, a business-backed group that supports public education in Wake County.
“If schools follow proper safety protocols, the risk of in-person learning can be minimized, but many schools simply lack the space, ventilation, staff and resources to do so,” Poston continued in a statement. “The best and safest path is vaccination.”
This story was originally published February 9, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
