Students are on their way back to class amid the coronavirus pandemic, and to keep you up to date with what’s going on in American schools – K-12 as well as colleges – Yahoo Life is holding a weekly closing with news exchanges, interviews and updates on the -fold situation.
CDC: The majority of teachers and school staff received 1 survey of the COVID-19 vaccine
Nearly 80 percent of U.S. teachers and school employees received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC made the announcement on Tuesday.
“We are pushing to ensure that teachers, school staff and childcare workers are vaccinated during March, have borne fruit and paved the way for safer personal learning,” said Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, CDC director, said in a press release. “CDC will build on the success of this program and continue to work with our partners to expand our vaccination efforts as we work to ensure confidence in COVID-19 vaccines.”
In early March, President Biden asked all states to prioritize vaccination for all teachers before the K to 12th grade, school staff and child care workers. After the directive, the number of countries where teachers and childcare workers are eligible increased by more than 50 percent, the CDC said. Teachers and staff have been prioritized by the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program and have also been vaccinated through school-specific vaccination opportunities.
More than 2 million teachers, school staff and child care workers were vaccinated by the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program in March, according to CDC data, and up to 6 million were vaccinated by their state programs by the end of the month.
This level of vaccination “makes it more likely that schools will open full-time sooner rather than later, and return to normal as soon as possible,” said Dr. Daniel Ganjian, a pediatrician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, tells Yahoo Life.
As a result of these vaccinations, “the school environment will be much safer for teachers and staff,” says Dr. Thomas Russo, Professor and Head of Infectious Diseases at Buffalo University in New York, to Yahoo Life. While children under the age of 16 may not yet be eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Russo says he hopes it will provide a greater degree of protection “for children in school.
“These protective layers enable us to return to a full-time personal school, which we really need at this stage,” he says.
More universities require students to be vaccinated against COVID-19
At the end of March, Rutgers University announced that by the fall, all students must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to attend personal classes. Now many other schools have followed.
Brown University, Cornell University, Nova Southeastern University, Northeastern University and St. Edward’s University requires students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before the beginning of the fall semester, with a few medical exceptions.
“We have every reason to expect that Fall 2021 at Brown will look and feel much more like the fall of 2019 than the fall of 2020,” Brown President Christina H. Paxson said in a April 6 letter. told to students and staff. Martha E. Pollack, president of Cornell University, said in a letter to students and staff that the school plans to ‘start the semester with normal personal tuition without an online option offered regularly, but with improved safety measures. . ‘
Russo says he is “in favor” of vaccinating COVID-19 for people on campus and notes that it will “unequivocally create a safer environment.” He acknowledges that some people would think that it violates their freedoms, but says that there is “a good legal priority for this”, which among other things indicates requirements for smallpox vaccinations.
Ganjian welcomes the move, but is concerned about accessibility. “There are a lot of states that are going to be difficult to deliver the vaccine on time so students can get it,” he says. But, he adds, “if the university can give the vaccine, it will help.”
High schools and colleges across the country are becoming vaccination clinics
Schools across the country are offering or planning to consider residents’ vaccination clinics soon. Ohio offers mobile vaccination clinics on university campuses across the state, including the University of Ohio. On Tuesday, the Arkansas government, Asa Hutchinson, announced that Arkansas schools will be able to work with the Department of Health, pediatricians and parents to provide vaccination clinics for students 16 years and older.
Only the Pfizer vaccine has been approved for 16- and 17-year-olds. According to the CDC, the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are recommended for use in people 18 years or older.
These clinics are very important in getting younger people vaccinated, says Russo. “In this age group, comfort is key,” he says. Ganjian agrees. “Accessibility is crucial, especially for young people whose patience is not as high as that of adults,” he says. “Having a vaccination clinic in schools is a problem and it will make it easier for children to be vaccinated.”
The hope, according to Ganjian, is to continue, as the vaccines are also allowed for younger children. “Making the vaccines easily accessible to everyone will increase the chances of children being vaccinated,” he says.
New York City eases its controversial “two-way rule” in schools
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday that the city would abolish its ‘two-case rule’ for COVID-19 cases, which would have to switch schools to distance education, if there were two cases and unrelated cases. of the virus was.
The city has expanded its opt-in window for remote families to choose whether or not they want to switch to personal learning as a result.
Instead of the two-way rule, de Blasio announced a four-law rule. Individual classrooms will also switch to distance learning only when a matter is reported to a teacher or student. ‘It will help us to be more consistent in school attendance and timetables [and] maintain strong health and safety standards, ”de Blasio told a news conference.
On Friday, New York City report 2,834 new COVID-19 cases.
Dr. Oscar G. Gomez-Duarte, head of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, tells Yahoo Life that it is ‘reasonable’ to think that the relaxation of the two-way rule ‘could increase the chances’ to keep schools open without the risk of increasing the transfer. ‘
“Now that the vaccine is available to anyone over the age of 16, alleviating restrictions at school may be safe,” he says. But Ganjian says that “time will tell” how well this new rule will work on four issues.
Russo also agrees that the new rule on four cases should still be effective in limiting the spread of COVID-19. “It will help to get more training for the last few months of the year,” he says. “Hopefully next year will be a little more normal.”
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