Teachers await Covid vaccines

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She was quick to set up virtual lessons for her fifth-grade language arts students in the spring. In the fall, she was excited to return to class, but on the second day of her return, she became so concerned about the conditions at her Houston school that she took part in an illness with other teachers.

Now she wants the Covid-19 vaccine to be a priority for her and all other teachers to protect them in their schools.

“I am all for getting teachers on a higher list because there are so many of us,” she told CNN.

President-elect Joe Biden laid out a plan to spend $ 160 billion to run a national immunization program, expand testing, and mobilize a public health jobs program, among other measures. He has also asked for $ 50 billion to expand Covid-19 testing, some of which is intended to meet his goal of reopening schools safely.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said getting children back to school and staying there would be one of his main goals when he becomes the chief medical adviser of the new administration.

“The idea of vaccinating teachers is a high priority, as well as doing surveillance in schools so that you can get a good idea of the penetration of the infection,” he said last month.

Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put teachers at the second level of vaccine recipients, recommending that they be immunized along with other essential front-line workers like grocery store staff and police officers, once staff health care providers and residents of long-term care facilities are protected.

But it’s up to individual states to make their own priorities, so if some like California are following CDC guidelines, it’s not mandatory.

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis decided to open vaccines to anyone over 65, sparking overwhelming demand.

In Texas, where Gill teaches, Governor Greg Abbott said in December he wanted teachers “close to the front.” But CNN affiliate KTRK reported last week that while Houston firefighters and police officers were being shot, teachers were still waiting.

Teacher death alarm

Evidence suggests that schools, especially elementary schools, are not the super-broadcasters many fear. Cities that have seen increased rates of coronavirus test positivity, such as Miami, have managed to keep schools open without a spike in cases among students and faculty.

Naseeb Gill teaches both the children who come to her class and those who stay at home.

But the teachers were infected and some died.

Zelene Blancas, a healthy 35-year-old freshman teacher in El Paso, Texas, spent months in hospital before dying of complications from Covid-19.

Philamena Belone, 44, taught third graders in an oxygen mask after being hospitalized for the first time for coronavirus treatment, but had to return when she couldn’t breathe on her own. Also in good health before, she died in December in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Stories like these have shocked and alarmed teachers. Gill told CNN last year she felt like she was being asked to choose between her students and her health.

“I walk into a room where I don’t really know what I’m breathing,” she says. “A lot of our schools are really, they’re very old and … their air conditioning units are very, very old.”

Gill says she knows people who are leaving the profession. She is stressed, but she does her best to let go and come to terms with the situation until she can be vaccinated and feel more secure.

For now, however, she uses some of the same protective techniques that are used by frontline medical staff.

“Before going to my boyfriend’s house, I’m going to change my clothes and make sure I take a shower and all that because I feel like I could give something to the people I care about”, she says.

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