COLOMBIA – South Carolina lawmakers are trying to find a way to offer COVID-19 vaccinations to teachers and get their students back into the classroom without harming seniors.
Efforts to save the last two months of the school year are at a critical juncture. If the legislation that links access to vaccination to mandatory face-to-face instruction does not get support in the next few days, the school year may essentially end before classroom doors are fully opened.
Options in the midst of limited vaccine supply include opening eligibility only for teachers aged 50 and over – as West Virginia did – or focusing on vaccinating employees in the younger grades, where virtual learning is more problematic.
“There is a way to do both, if we are creative,” Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, said on February 8, about reopening classrooms without taking the elderly out of their vaccination schedules.
The key to finding a compromise at the Statehouse could be the diversion of nearly 38,000 extra doses from long-term care institutions to teachers.
Last week, the federal government still kept these bottles. And the state public health agency, which had overestimated the doses needed for long-term care, was unsure about potential federal rules on its redistribution.
But they can go a long way in vaccinating educators willing to have an injection. It is estimated that 71,300 people working in K-12 public schools across the state, less than 60% of the total, are willing to roll up their sleeves, according to a survey by the state Department of Education.
The Senate will resume debate on February 9 on a measure that requires all K-12 employees who want an injection to be fully vaccinated in 30 days – a Herculean feat considering that the two doses required for full immunization must be administered with three to four weeks apart. Then, on March 22, all schools would have to offer full weeks of classroom learning.
Although difficult, this six-week schedule is absolutely doable, said the project’s sponsor, Senate majority leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield.
“We are at risk of losing a generation of children,” he said. “I don’t know how we are going to recover from this.”
The problem, according to the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, is that for this to happen, it would be necessary to put the elderly on hold and divert all doses to the K-12 effort for two weeks.
“If someone has been waiting for six, eight or ten weeks, you can easily add a few weeks to the current waiting time” for an appointment, Nick Davidson, DHEC’s senior public health deputy, told senators on February 4. “We would have to do the reprogramming, yes. It is simply because there is not enough vaccine.”
In addition, people who have already received their first doses may not be able to obtain a second within the recommended time frame, depending on where they did it, said Davidson.
These scenarios explain why Governor Henry McMaster is vehemently opposed to the idea – a stance applauded by AARP.
“There should be no confusion” about prioritizing the elderly, said AARP state director Teresa Arnold.
The Republican governor continues to pressure districts to offer an entire week of face-to-face learning, as he has been doing since last summer, but he considers it unfair to put teachers ahead of the elderly, who are much more susceptible to falling ill and dying of COVID -19.
Another 309,000 elderly people aged 65 to 69 became eligible for vaccination on February 8, adding to the 630,000 elderly people aged 70 and over who have been able to apply since January 13.
In all, 1.3 million Southern Carolinians are on the eligibility list, which also includes long-term care residents and eligible health professionals since vaccines began arriving in mid-December. On Monday, almost 471,000 people received at least the first shot, according to DHEC.
Some providers have been making appointments for seniors for more than a month, said Davidson.
“Nobody disagrees with teachers’ vaccinations,” said House majority leader Gary Simrill, R-Rock Hill. “But the question is the ability to do so, and are you replacing teachers with those with much higher morbidity rates?”
Rock Hill Republican agrees with McMaster. If the Senate sends the House a bill that vaccinates teachers “pushing the most vulnerable in our society down the list,” Simrill will argue to defeat him.
Of the 7,690 Southern Carolinians who died of COVID-19, 82 percent of them were 65 or older, according to DHEC.
But the proposal could divide the Republican majority in the House. If the idea goes anywhere in that chamber, it will all boil down to details.
“Teachers are essential workers. I would support promoting them,” said Rep. Raye Felder, R-Fort Mill, chairman of the K-12 Chamber’s educational panel. “But we have to honor those who have commitments.”
Parents Toni Reale, Susie Ash and Jullian Hollingsworth (from left) held a demonstration outside North Charleston High School on Monday, February 8, 2021, to ask Governor Henry McMaster to allow teachers faster access to vaccine COVID-19. McMaster was at school to award director Henry Darby the Palmetto Order. Grace Beahm Alford / Staff
Rep. Russell Ott, D-St. Matthews is working on his own proposal that would add educators to the eligibility list without any obligation on how quickly they can get both pictures. Regardless, districts would be required to open all classrooms within a month.
“I recognize that there are no good answers here. We are trying to find the least bad answer,” he said. “We are doing more harm to children outside the classroom than the potential threat of returning.”
A Democrat from Calhoun County, Ott represents one of two rural school districts where students have not returned since schools closed last March.
But that will soon change, following the impulses of state superintendent Molly Spearman. Calhoun County plans to bring elementary students back four days a week, starting next week. Lee County is starting to offer one day a week of face-to-face learning.
McMaster and Spearman point to a growing body of research that shows that classrooms can function safely without teachers being vaccinated. The data show that the cases found in most schools are not contracted there, and when they are, it is not the students who spread the virus.
Also recently supporting McMaster’s arguments for months, are Democratic voices across the country.
Amid discussions about resuming face-to-face learning in some of the nation’s largest school systems, including Chicago and San Francisco, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on February 3 that vaccinating teachers “is not a prerequisite for the safe reopening of schools. ”
