LESS THAN 13% OF CPS STUDENTS YOUNGER THAN 12 VACCINATED SO FAR: OFFICIALS
Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez says he’s concerned by lagging student vaccination rates as the district sees infections and quarantines beginning to rise heading into the holiday season, and as a new COVID-19 variant causes worries.
Just less than half of CPS students aged 12 and up have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 despite becoming eligible in the spring, officials said Tuesday. And only 12.6% of younger students in the 5-11 age group approved for shots last month have received at least one jab, meaning far fewer are fully vaccinated. More than 90% of staff have completed their vaccine series.
“I’m still very concerned on the percentages of our students,” Martinez told reporters at a City Hall news conference with Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady. “In terms of fully being vaccinated, we want to get well above 50%.”
The district saw an uptick in reported cases and children quarantined leading up to Thanksgiving, making vaccines as important as ever. There were 71 student infections reported Nov. 15, matching a single-day high since the start of the school year. In all, the week before Thanksgiving saw 367 students and 98 adults test positive. Those figures remain an extremely low fraction of the 330,000-student district.
Martinez and Arwady had worried about a rise in infections as families gathered for the holidays, but it’s too early to tell Thanksgiving’s effect on case rates, they said Tuesday. That’ll be monitored over the next week or two along with the
emergence of the Omicron variant that is still being researched but could have major implications in the coming weeks and months.
CPS is still working on scaling up its voluntary testing program, Martinez said, but has now hit a capacity of 40,000 weekly tests. Those are for asymptomatic students and staff as a way of monitoring the virus’ undetected spread in schools.
The testing program is still a far cry from the district’s August promise of having the ability to test every student and staff member weekly, and many schools are seeing
low opt-in rates.
Martinez said he’d like at least 10% of the students at every school to be signed up for weekly testing. Many schools are at less than half that rate, Chalkbeat Chicago reported. The program has faced several delays and hurdles this school year, and Martinez said he was disappointed CPS hadn’t been better prepared when he took over as CEO in late September.
Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey called the district’s testing plan “irresponsible” Tuesday and urged universal testing
and more vaccination events to keep schools safe.
As far as quarantines go, the district also reached all-time high numbers last month of students sent home because of potential inschool COVID-19 exposure. The two weeks before Thanksgiving saw an average hovering around 6,000 students and staff in quarantine.
That’s despite CPS reducing the isolation window from 14 days to 10 in hopes of bringing those numbers down. As of Monday, there were nearly 4,877 students and 185 adults quarantined, CPS records show.