Gov. Wolf visits mass COVID vaccine site for teachers
Rebecca Titus sat calmly on a chair beside a table inside a large room at the Berks County Intermediate Unit Monday morning.
“You have to roll up your sleeve,” Gov. Tom Wolf, standing a few feet in front of her, said to her.
Titus slipped off her black cardigan, exposing that the black top she was wearing beneath was sleeveless.
“I purposely wore this,” she said, a smile evident beneath her face mask. “I came prepared.”
It probably wasn’t exactly how Titus imagined the moment going.
She likely didn’t think that when she got her chance to get jabbed with a COVID-19 vaccine she would be doing so with the governor watching. The idea that a gaggle of media and local officials would be gathered for the event isn’t something that probably crossed her mind.
But Titus didn’t seem to mind the added attention. She had volunteered, after all, and was more focused on the result than the circumstances.
“It’s very exciting we have this opportunity,” Titus said. “This is going to make a big difference for all of us.”
One-week clinic
Titus, an elementary school teacher in the Reading School District, is one of more than 4,000 Berks County school employees who will receive doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine through a one-week clinic at the Berks County Intermediate Unit that began Friday. The site is part of a statewide initiative to get people working in schools vaccinated.
Wolf announced the plan on March 4, saying Pennsylvania would take all of the 94,600 doses of the newlyapproved Johnson & Johnson vaccine it was getting in its initial shipment and use it on school employees. Another 30,000 being sent directly to retail pharmacies will be used to vaccinate early childhood education workers and child care workers.
The school worker vaccination program in being run through the state’s 28 regional intermediate units, which began operating clinics late last week. Monday morning, the governor visited one, stopping by the BCIU for a tour and press conference.
Led by BCIU Executive Director Jill Hackman, Wolf saw how school employees check in at a reception area. He then walked down a hallway to a large room set up as a waiting room, with empty chairs spaced appropriately apart.
The governor then moved on to the next room, where he got to see a pair of live vaccinations.
Two local teachers, Titus and Diane Kay, an early intervention special education teacher at the BCIU, had graciously agreed to turn their appointments into public events.
Both expressed appreciation for the governor’s efforts to make vaccines available to educators.
“Thank you so much for this opportunity,” Kay said.
Wolf asked Kay if she was at all nervous, getting a shot with so many onlookers. She assured him she was not.
Hackman, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as comfortable with the procedure.
“I’m not watching,” she said with a laugh. “You’ll be picking me up from the floor.”
Titus said she was glad that she would be getting the Johnson & Johnson variety of the vaccine. Back in December she had COVID-19, she said, and she was worried that the new variants of the disease could strike her a second time.
Johnson & Johnson has shown to be particularly effective against variants, Titus said.
Wolf, who went through a bout with COVID-19 himself, asked Titus what the experience was like for her.
“I thought I was having a heart attack,” she told him. “I actually looked up heart attack symptoms in women.”
Titus said she had intense
pressure on her chest, as well as trouble breathing and significant fatigue. It is not something she ever wants to experience again.
“So I was more than ready to get this,” she said, moments before receiving her injection.
Following his tour, Wolf headed outside where he held a press conference in the BCIU parking lot, flanked by a bright yellow school bus.
There, he spoke hopefully about what clinics like the one at the BCIU mean for Pennsylvania.
“Our ultimate goal is to offer every public and private school worker a vaccine to protect people, help even more students return to the classroom and get communities another step closer to normal,” he said.
Wolf acknowledged the challenges that teachers,
students and families have faced over the past year, as schools across the state have been forced to completely or in part rely on virtual learning because of the ongoing pandemic. He spoke about the worries of students falling behind, about the mental toll it has taken.
“We just can’t do enough online,” he said.
Getting school workers vaccinated, Wolf said, is a step toward improving the situation. It’s a step toward getting more kids back into classrooms more often.
“After a very hard year, vaccination clinics like this one give us all hope and remind us that as vaccine supply increases, we will get though this pandemic,” he said.
Vaccinating school workers, and in turn getting kids back into classrooms, will not only benefit education,
but entire communities, Wolf said. He spoke about the juggling act so many families have had to do, trying to balance work with their children’s educations.
53,000 doses administered
Wolf said vaccine clinics like the one at the BCIU will hopefully help to lift some of those burdens off of families.
And, so far, they’ve been running smoothly, he said.
The governor said that at intermediate unit vaccination clinics across the state — which does not include Philadelphia, which gets its own vaccine supply separate from the state — nearly 53,000 doses had already been administered as of Monday morning.
The 94,600 doses the state received in its initial allotment isn’t enough
to cover all teachers. The first round of vaccinations is giving priority to those who work with students in elementary schools and those who work with special needs or English as a second language students.
Wolf said that Pennsylvania did not get any additional Johnson & Johnson vaccine last week, and doesn’t expect a shipment this week. The next batch is scheduled for the following week, the last in March.
Those doses, which Wolf said he believes will be a large number, will be used to vaccinate school workers who didn’t get a shot as part of the initial wave. The governor said he hopes all school workers who want to be will be vaccinated by the end of the month.
“The idea is at that point we’ll be able to finish the job,” Wolf said.