One of Colorado’s largest public health departments halted COVID-19 vaccinations for teachers and other school staff on Tuesday, saying that all 70s and older must be vaccinated first under state direction.
The Tri-County Department of Health, which serves Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties, is telling its providers – including hospitals, local health agencies and others capable of offering the vaccine – to stop distribution to any essential workers in the Phase 1B of the state’s implementation plan until older residents first had access, said Karen Miller, the agency’s immunization nursing manager.
This includes scheduled doses for at least two school systems that plan to vaccinate teachers in the coming weeks. Nurses in the Cherry Creek school district took their first injections on New Year’s Day through a partnership with Centura Health. The district planned to vaccinate school social workers, psychologists, special education paraprofessionals and cafeteria workers this week, and to start scheduling teacher vaccinations next week.
The Douglas County School District also planned to bring the vaccine to educators and other staff members who deal with students, such as security guards and bus drivers, starting this week or next week, according to a note sent to the team.
Miller said teachers in three Tri-County counties are more likely to be vaccinated starting in March. Confusion over state guidance has led to errors in how doses should be allocated, she said.
“In retrospect, it is always easier to say that we would like to have guidance when the plan was launched so that this type of error does not happen,” said Miller. “Everyone is very important to the functioning of our society and these are very difficult decisions to make. These are guidelines and guidelines from our governor’s office and the state health department. “
Governor Jared Polis announced last week that about 1.19 million people would advance in the COVID-19 vaccine line and join the first respondents and health professionals with less contact with COVID-19 patients in Phase 1B. The groups added to the stage included anyone aged 70 or over and several essential workers, including those in schools and supermarkets.
But when the governor announced the move, little detail was provided about how the state would get groups selected. There was also no information about how the newly expanded Phase 1B individuals would be prioritized.
Since then, public health agencies have been instructed to vaccinate about 562,000 individuals aged 70 and over who live in Colorado before making doses available to essential workers in Phase 1B.
The state health department said Monday night that suppliers who distribute the vaccine need to focus on the groups above what they call the “dotted line” in Phase 1B on their distribution chart before moving on to essential line workers. from the front, as teachers, grocery workers and postman.
The groups that should receive the first priority in Phase 1B are health professionals with less direct contact with COVID-19 patients, including those in dental and home health settings; first to respond; and people aged 70 and over.
The state Department of Public Health and Environment said that school nurses are considered “health care providers and are in the early part of 1B”.
“Teachers and other non-clinical education teams are in the last part of 1B (below the dotted line in the graph),” said a health department spokesman by email.
But providers were told by the state health department that they should not start distributing the vaccine to essential workers until everyone in the groups above them was vaccinated, otherwise it could “hinder our chances of accessing the vaccine if we do. ”Said Chana Goussetis, a public health spokesman for Boulder County.
“It makes things very difficult for us,” she said of schools like the Cherry Creek district that received doses of vaccine in advance. “What we need the state to do is to make everyone responsible for prioritization.”
Miller said that Tri-County is still completing Phase 1A of vaccine distribution, while also starting Phase 1B. There are about 120,000 residents aged 70 or older in the agency’s coverage area, people she expects to have access to the vaccine in about two to three weeks.
“We plan to go through this group by the end of February,” and then school officials would be eligible to receive the doses, she said. “This may be a very optimistic estimate, but it is our hope, as long as we have enough vaccines available in our state.”