In the News
The news of a safe, effective vaccine has been a rare bright spot during the yearlong fight against the coronavirus, but plenty of questions remain. Earlier this week, MƒA hosted an information-rich virtual course about the coronavirus and the mechanics of developing effective vaccines with Dr. Florian Krammer, a professor of vaccinology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
Following the talk, Krammer answered teachers’ questions about how a potential vaccine would impact educators, their students, and the general public. Stephen Noonoo, a K-12 editor with EdSurge, attended the talk and compiled a sampling of Krammer’s remarks for a feature story:
Where do educators fall in the priority list for vaccines?
Krammer points to the four-phase vaccine allocation proposal by the National Academy of Sciences, designed to provide an equitable framework for vaccine distribution. According to the framework, teachers and school staff fall in the second category, behind high-risk health care workers and older adults in nursing homes and those with comorbidities to COVID-19, but ahead of kids, young adults and those in critical jobs who are only at moderate risk for contracting COVID-19. Older teachers and those with preexisting conditions may be closer to the front of the line.
“I think that makes sense. You have a lot of exposure to kids,” Krammer says of teachers’ place in line for the vaccine. “There are assumptions that kids are less infectious, but kids have transmitted the virus plenty. So I think you should get the vaccine as soon as possible if you want to get it.”
Read the full feature story in EdSurge.