Teachers, others will join vaccine pool

After weeks of pressure from frustrated parents and teacher groups, Kemp announced that the state’s roughly 450,000 educators and school staffers will join the pool of those eligible for vaccines March 8, along with adults with intellectual disabilities and parents of children with “complex medical conditions.”

Kemp tied the expansion, which officials said will add an estimated 1 million people to the vaccine pool, to resuming in-person classes in school districts that have not yet reopened.

“Our children cannot afford to wait until the fall. The costs are simply too high,” Kemp said. “Georgians deserve to return to normal as soon as possible, and that will not happen without schoolhouse doors open for face-to-face instruction each and every day.”

The governor and state health officials have been reluctant to move teachers up in the line, saying the scarce supply of vaccines already has made it difficult to inoculate Georgians who are 65 and older, along with other high-risk residents.

But he’s now prepared to do so after seeing a partial state survey suggesting tepid demand for vaccines from educators, as well as a slight increase in the state’s supply of vaccines.

Before the announcement, the governor had faced tremendous outcry from teachers and parents angry that most educators have yet to receive vaccines in Georgia. They were upset about Kemp’s decision to move people age 65 and older from the third inoculation phase to the first, leapfrogging teachers in “Phase 1b,” who were set to be next in line.

While most school districts have resumed in-person learning, the governor has expressed increasing frustration at public school systems that haven’t. He urged administrators in those school systems not to wait until teachers are inoculated or until next school year.

“I’m not ordering schools to open,” Kemp said. “But, I believe now with this other tool, there should be no reason for us not to get kids back into the classroom.”

Right now, the vaccine is limited to those who are 65 and older and their caregivers; first responders; health care workers; and staffers and residents of long-term care facilities. About 57% of older Georgians have received at least one dose of the vaccine, Kemp said.

Not eligible yet are other “medically fragile” Georgians, though the governor indicated they would be included in the next expansion.

HYOSUB SHIN/HYOSUB.SHIN@AJC.COM Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency Director James Stallings talks Thursday during a news conference for state COVID-19 vaccine distribution updates at the state Capitol.

COURTESY Former President Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter recently received their COVID-19 vaccinations.