On Sunday, the number of coronavirus vaccines administered in Massachusetts rose from 72,047 to 3,904,179, state officials said.
The Department of Public Health said the number of people who were fully vaccinated – with two shots of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines or with one shot of the Johnson & Johnson – had risen to 1,478,520.
Updates on coronavirus cases, deaths and other measures were not released on Sunday. According to the state COVID-19 dashboard, that data will be included in Monday’s report.
On Saturday, the state reported 2,263 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus, bringing the state’s total to 605,055. The department also reported 30 new confirmed coronavirus deaths on Saturday, bringing the state’s total to 16,938.
The number of coronavirus cases is rising steadily as 90 percent of Massachusetts’ school districts prepare to send elementary school students back to full-time, personal learning on Monday.
Last week, COVID-19 cases among public school students and staff members reached their highest weekly total since the beginning of the academic year.
Despite the record report – 801 new cases of coronavirus among students and 244 among school staff for the week ending April 3 – government officials and public health experts said the figures were not a sign that schools were unsafe.
They cited several factors, including an increase in virus cases among young people and the number of children and staff in schools that have recently reached the highest levels since classrooms closed in March 2020.
CDC officials said personal schooling is safe for children as long as precautions are taken, including maintaining 3-foot distance between students and wearing a universal mask.
Dr. “Davidson Hamer, an infectious disease expert at Boston University of Public Health and Medicine, was aware of the continuing disruption of students ‘education, but said the decision to allow children to return to personal classes,’ was a difficult call. ”
“The timing is really not optimal due to the recent increase in business,” he said. “But on the other hand, it’s been planned for a while.”
If schools make a good effort to disinfect spaces, enforce social distance and ensure mask use, the risk of transmission can be reduced, Hamer said. Ideally, routine investigations should take place to get outbreaks, he said.
Nevertheless, Hamer expressed concern about the return of students to class as cases escalated, adding that he suspects that the increase in recent COVID-19 cases is partly driven by the B.1.1.7 variant first introduced in the United States. Kingdom has been identified.
“I think three weeks ago I would have felt better about it,” he said.
Some districts, including Boston and Worcester, have received pardons from the state to delay the return to personal learning. According to state education officials, all primary schools are expected to be fully personal by 3 May.
The return to personal learning has been hampered in some communities by a shortage of school bus drivers.
In Lynn, Superintendent Patrick Tutwiler said Saturday that the district should temporarily suspend the school bus service because the transportation vendor does not have enough drivers. The service suspension affects 680 special education students who need transportation, he said.
“I know how important transportation is and it’s heartbreaking that we can not provide it for some of our most needy students,” Tutwiler said in an email. “However, this issue is temporary and we are using every resource to move as quickly as possible to resolve it.”
The district salesman, NRT Bus Inc., now has 18 drivers in Lynn, compared to more than 40 drivers in a typical year, Tutwiler said.
In a statement, the company has been providing all the transportation requested by the district since September and has “worked diligently” to hire managers and other staff to serve Lynn and other communities since state education officials announced plans to personally learn from this again month.
“There is no greater priority for NRT than transporting our student passengers safely to school, and we will continue to work with districts to ensure that every child in need of a ride gets one,” the statement said.
Lynn Public Schools is working on a plan to accommodate students who need transportation, but the details have not yet been finalized, Tutwiler said. Families of students with special needs who need transportation are eligible for mileage compensation, he said.
Jared Nicholson, a member of the Lynn School Committee, said the shortage of bus drivers is a stock issue.
“Managers found other jobs in districts that could come back sooner,” he said. “This is another example of the pandemic that makes us rethink how we value workers who are truly essential to the basic services we expect and what our family deserves.”
Tom Hamilton, executive director of the School Transportation Association of Massachusetts, said there have been about 1,200 fewer school bus drivers at work since the March 2020 pandemic suddenly sent students home.
Many school bus drivers got new jobs after their employers stopped receiving payments from some school systems and fired workers, he said on Saturday.
“The drivers are just like anyone else. They have to put food on the table, ”Hamilton said.
In Springfield, school leaders warned families Friday that a shortage of bus drivers on Monday could cause transportation disruptions.
Springfield Superintendent Daniel Warwick on Saturday said bus routes have been adjusted and the district no longer supports major delays in transportation.
“We think we have everything ready for Monday morning,” he said.
A spokesman for First Student Inc., the transportation company of Springfield Public Schools, said recruiting school bus drivers even before the pandemic was challenging because low unemployment caused a lot of competition for workers.
Spokesman Chris Kemper said First Student is offering a $ 1,500 sign-up bonus to new drivers in Springfield as part of its recruiting efforts.
“This is a very unique opportunity,” he said. ‘Some of our people will tell us that this is the hardest job you will ever have. They do it for the kids. ‘
World correspondent Abigail Feldman contributed to this report.
Laura Crimaldi can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @lauracrimaldi.