The news on Jan. 29 was what local school officials had been hoping for: Colorado’s educators, school staff and administrators are at the front of the line for the COVID-19 vaccine as of Feb. 8.
Gov. Polis’s Jan. 29 announcement gives new clarity to groups in line for the COVID-19 vaccine. Photo Unsplash/John Cameron
Gov. Jared Polis announced that providers will be able to vaccinate anyone 65 and over, continuing to prioritize those 70 and over who have not yet received a vaccine, as well as pre-K-12 educators and staff, child care workers in licensed programs and workers essential for the continuity of state government.
Chaffee County’s Director of Public Health, Andrea Carlstrom, said plans are moving steadily to get the vaccine into the arms of school workers.
“We’re working closely with the schools to orchestrate a vaccination clinic for all county school staff in the very near future,” she said. “All along, we have prioritized in-person learning, and vaccinating school staff is one more part of our strategy.”
The governor’s announcement also provided new clarity on other groups in line. Polis said the State estimates that close to March 5, frontline workers and Coloradans ages 16-64 with two or more high-risk conditions will also be eligible for the vaccine. It’s projected that Coloradans ages 60 and up will also be able to start receiving the vaccine around March 5.
The question of vaccine priority came up at last week’s Chaffee County roundtable, a twice-weekly gathering in which local leaders talk about COVID-19-related matters. It’s also a place to vent frustrations.
The superintendents from both Buena Vista and Salida school districts, Lisa Yates and David Blackburn, were on the call last Monday and expressed dismay at the lack of clear direction from the state and the need for their staffs to get vaccinated sooner than later. Salida’s district has 251 employees and 52 substitute teachers. Buena Vista has roughly 200 employees and 30 subs.
Buena Vista’s Yates, who has reminded the Roundtable that this county has prioritized in-person school instruction, said the vaccine situation was an “ethical dilemma,” and that “it is severely impacting our employees.” She reiterated her stance with the school board Monday evening.
One of key priorities in Chaffee’s communities has been keeping students in in-person learning – a facet that supports the local economy as well as children’s academic success and mental health. Studies on the pandemic’s learning gap show in-person learning to be essential for kids whose home environments lack the resources for effective online learning, as well as a lifeline for children who are safer and better fed at school.
Many districts throughout Colorado began the fall semester online or went to remote learning for large portions of the semester because they couldn’t juggle the staffing issues once significant numbers of teachers and support staff became ill or were ordered to quarantine as close contacts.
Polis said the move to prioritize educators and school staff is “foundational to our society to function… for workplace equity, for the sanity of families with kids.”
He said that remote learning has taken its toll in multiple directions. “We’ve seen a startling increase in gender disparities in the workplace,” he noted, pointing out that many women have had no choice but to pull out of the workforce to be home with children.
In the hour-long conference Friday, Polis said the accelerated vaccine timelines were made possible because of “visibility into the next three weeks of vaccine supply,” and attributed that to new priorities in the Biden administration.
“We finally have a sense of what we’re going to get,” he said.
Polis said that once the 70+ age group reaches 70 percent vaccination rates – with the state target of Feb. 28 – “It ends the crisis phase of the pandemic.” He noted that 78 percent of COVID-19 fatalities and 40 percent of hospitalizations are in that age group.
With deaths reduced by three quarters once that milestone is reached, “that inherently is big progress,” he said.
To those waiting farther out in the timeline, Polis urged patience. “Everybody will have the chance to get this vaccine, and it is free,” he said. “But everybody can’t get it at once.”
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