Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Monday, Dec. 28, that teachers are part of the group that could receive the next wave of the coronavirus vaccine in California’s distribution plan.
Health care workers and first responders were the first Californians to receive the vaccine in a process dictated by state public health officials. As more of their ranks are vaccinated locally, Newsom discussed the “next phase” of the roll out.
Vaccinations were set to begin at nursing homes in California on Monday, Newsom said. He announced the state had opted into a federal pharmacy partnership that involves CVS and Walgreens inoculating residents and staff of the facilities at no cost to the state or local governments. Other types of long-term care facilities would follow in about a month.
He also said a group that includes educators, child care workers, individuals 75 years or older and workers in emergency services, food distribution and farming could get a vaccine “next month, we hope.”
“This is what is under consideration,” Newsom said during a media briefing about the state’s response to the pandemic, “and what we believe will be finalized as early as Wednesday.”
Newsom said California expects to receive about 232,000 more doses of the Moderna vaccine and 297,375 more doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech edition by the end of this week. Those supplies, he said, will push the state’s total received to about 1.8 million doses.
The governor estimated about 262,000 doses have been administered so far.
The potential inclusion of teachers in the next phase arrives as many schools remain in distance learning, and an increasing number that reopened have shifted temporarily back to online teaching because of the recent spike in coronavirus cases.
“We appreciate what the governor has done with placing teachers as such high importance in receiving the vaccine,” said Grant Schuster, president of the Anaheim Secondary Teachers Association. “At the same time, we need to make sure this is part of an entire process that still does the testing and the tracing and we make sure that we return as safely as possible. … There’s nothing that teachers want more than to be back in the classroom with their students.”
Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of California’s Health and Human Services Agency, said the state Department of Public Health will enroll providers to distribute a vaccine.
A spokesperson for the California Department of Education on Monday said the agency doesn’t “yet have any information about the distribution” of a vaccine.
Schuster said one question for school districts is whether a vaccine will be required for teachers.
“I think that question is still up in the air,” he said. “Safety is one of the three areas that unions have a right to demand to bargain, and I’m sure we’ll be discussing that specific question with the district.”
