Thousands of teachers in New York have canceled their COVID-19 vaccine appointments thanks to the provision and planning of snafus – a bureaucratic mess that could only delay the reopening of schools, union chief Michael Mulgrew told The Post on Tuesday.
The situation has made it virtually impossible to keep track of who gets the chance, Mulgrew said.
‘I want schools to be open in September. “But a lot has to happen before we can make the call,” the union said.
David Bloomfield, a professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center, agrees and warns: “Until we are widely vaccinated, it will be difficult to empower staff.”
As for the Department of Education and the administration of de Blasio, both could not yet say on Tuesday how many Big Apple educators were stabbed.
There are about 75,000 teachers assigned in the city classes for public schools. Current personal educators have been given preference to get the shots after the city reopened a number of pre-K to fifth-grade classes for classroom learning earlier this month.
Mulgrew told The Post that about 20,000 city teachers in the classroom had requested appointments from the union and that 10,000 had been linked to suppliers so far.
Of these, about 5,000 administered the vaccine.
But teachers are also searching independently of the vaccination, whether through city services or channels outside the five districts.
Mulgrew said appointments made by the city are being massively canceled due to vaccine shortages and scheduling problems.
“We sent several thousand people to us and said that their appointment had been canceled,” he said.
Several teachers confirmed to The Post this week that their vaccination dates for the city have not been set and that they have not yet been able to get new ones.
Mulgrew said Tuesday that City Hall has promised to pass on how many teachers have been vaccinated by agencies outside the union, but has not yet provided the details.
The complicated issue, according to the union, is the fact that some teachers living outside the city can be vaccinated without direct notice from local agencies.
“The city really needs to better coordinate the program,” Mulgrew said. “We are in a place where we will be through this in six to nine months because we have developed herd immunity, or that we will be in this for another one to two years.”
Mulgrew said the union tried to ensure that doses were available before connecting members with suppliers.
The approach has enabled the organization to avoid cancellations, he said.
“The federal government needs to get more vaccines for us,” he said. “It’s not a debate. But you should not let all these appointments be made and then cancel it because you are booking too much. ‘
City officials on Tuesday grasped that they were struggling with unpredictable supplies from the shot.
“There’s a national shortage of vaccines,” said City Councilman Avery Cohen.
‘Like many other cities in America, we are forced to reschedule thousands of appointments because of the issues. With more than 650,000 doses administered to date, we have built the infrastructure to place shots in the arms of millions of New Yorkers. We just need the doses to get it done. ”
Mulgrew stressed that there is no vaccination rate for magicians that will cause the reopening of the country’s largest school system.
He said the COVID-19 indicators in the city – and the vaccination rates – will determine when the classrooms say goodbye full-time again.