Vaccines ramp up for state’s educators
Governor strives to reopen schools
California will release about 75,000 vaccine doses every week for counties to administer to teachers and other education workers, under a plan announced by the governor’s office Thursday that further prioritizes educators to quickly get schools reopened.
Gov. Gavin Newsom promised last week to set aside a minimum of 10% of the state’s vaccine supply for education workers. The plan released Thursday offered the first details for how those doses will be distributed and how teachers will be granted access to the front of the vaccination line.
The plan calls for counties to lead campaigns to get shots into the arms of K12 teachers, child care workers and other school staff. Also, the state
will host targeted drives for educators, including dedicated days for them at the Oakland Coliseum and California State University Los Angeles vaccination sites. Education workers will also be able to get doses from mobile units and community vaccination sites.
Newsom has been under pressure to reopen schools across California, where the majority of students have been in virtual classrooms for almost a year. That pressure is mounting as cases drop from the winter surge and counties start loosening public health restrictions.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed said earlier this week she expects the city to move into the red tier next week and likely open more businesses, including potentially indoor dining. Santa Clara County officials on Thursday said they also expect to move into the less restrictive tier as early as next week and will allow more indoor activities then. The county already is relaxing rules on outdoor gatherings, including mask mandates. Face coverings are now only required if people are within 6 feet of others, not at all times in public.
“As things improve, it is still important for everyone to continue to practice basic prevention measures: face coverings, social distancing and doing as much activity as possible outdoors,” said Dr. Sara Cody, the Santa Clara County health officer, in a statement.
Schools mostly remain closed in much of San Francisco, Santa Clara County and the rest of the Bay Area. Vaccinating teachers and other education workers has become a priority in the push to reopen classrooms.
As part of Newsom’s plan announced Thursday, to ensure educators get preferential access to the vaccine delivery network the state will provide singleuse codes so they can make appointments using California’s online vaccination portal, myturn.ca.gov.
The state plan encourages counties to prioritize vaccines for staff who work with lowincome or otherwise disadvantaged students. The number of codes allocated to each county will be based on the number of education workers and whether those workers serve children who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, either by the illness itself or prolonged school closures.
County education departments will be responsible for distributing the codes to school districts, charter schools and private schools based on qualifying staff size and student equity. The schools will choose which staff members receive the codes.
The state’s plan does not specify whether teachers for lower grades will be prioritized over teachers for higher grades, as California encourages schools to reopen classrooms for younger children first.
The state confirmed that the codes will be singleuse — unique to each teacher or other staff member. By creating singleuse codes, the state hopes to avoid reported abuses of group vaccine access codes. The group codes, intended to get individuals in underserved areas easier access to vaccination sites, were widely shared via text messages among people for whom they were not intended.
At a news conference Tuesday, Newsom acknowledged the systemic abuse and said the state would be moving away from a group access code to individual codes for people in need.
“We don’t like to see those abuses,” he said. “So we’re working through those things and we’re correcting for those.”
Bay Area public health officials said Thursday that they could not say immediately how many codes their counties would receive or how exactly they’d be distributed. Marin County officials said they have set aside vaccination dates for educators who work in the county, and have developed a tiered system to prioritize doses for schools workers most at risk.
At least 35 of California’s 58 counties have started vaccinating teachers and other education workers. San Francisco began offering vaccines on Wednesday to school and child care workers, along with some other essential workers, including food and agriculture employees and emergency service providers.
On Thursday, two mass vaccination sites in the city — at Moscone Center and City College San Francisco — reopened after temporary closures due to lack of supply. Among the first in line were newly eligible individuals, including some teachers.
Teacher Julia Myall got her first dose of vaccine at Moscone Center on Thursday. She described the process as quick and efficient.
“I was super stoked to get a vaccine,” Myall said. “I’m ready to get back and start helping out the kids at school.”
The Moscone Center site has enough first and second doses of the vaccine to stay open for at least two weeks, said San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney.
President Biden said Thursday that while coronavirus shots have so far been limited and in demand, by April or May, “instead of long lines, we’ll have the vaccine waiting” for anyone who wants it.
The addition of a vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson — which is expected to be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration soon — to the national supply also should improve access, Biden said. If it happens, he said at a White House event, “We have a plan to roll it out as quickly as Johnson & Johnson can make it.”