Public health lesson plan

All New York City public schools will be in person come the fall, Mayor de Blasio correctly said back in May. But more than half the youngsters who are eligible have yet to get a single vaccine shot. Hurry the heck up. The first day of school, Sept. 13, is less than eight weeks away. It typically takes five or six weeks for someone to become fully vaccinated, provided they’re getting the Moderna or Pfizer jab: the first shot, followed by the second shot three or four weeks later, followed by a two-week wait for the immune response to completely kick in.

Right now, 44% of the 12-to-17-year-olds eligible for the vaccine have gotten at least one shot, and just 30% are fully protected. Do we want another year of rolling closures? Even after the city scrapped its stupid two-case rule, replacing it with a more liberal threshold for shutting a school down, it’s begging for chronic classroom and campus disruptions if vaccinations remain low.

No matter what, younger kids will remain unvaccinated in large numbers, since the FDA has yet to approve shots for them, even on an emergency basis; masks will be their best protection. But science shows they’re much less likely to be spreaders, and much less likely to get severely ill from COVID, anyway. It’s middle- and high-schoolers who are likelier to spread the virus, and who more often get seriously sick with COVID. Get them protected — and as soon as the FDA grants full approval to an age group, Albany must make immunization a requirement of admission, as it is for measles, diptheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, polio and more.

Tuesday, Mayor de Blasio promised, “We’re going to be doing a major, major campaign to alert parents, bring them in, educate them, make it easy for them,” saying it was “coming soon, for sure.” How soon could be the difference between education and another lost year, and life and death.