Texas teachers, child caregivers now qualified for the COVID-19 vaccine

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Texas teachers are now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccines, health officials announced on Wednesday.

With immediate effect, all Texas vaccine providers must include all school personnel, Head Start employees and daycare workers in their vaccine administration programs, according to a notice that the Texas State Department of Health sent to the providers.

The announcement came after the Biden government on Tuesday asked all states to prioritize vaccinating teachers and school staff. Texas has not prioritized teachers previously. Texas received a letter from the United States Department of Health and Human Services Tuesday evening, instructing him to expand eligibility, according to a DSHS press release.

Eligible are “those who work in pre-primary, primary and secondary schools, as well as the Head Start and Early Head Start programs (including teachers, employees and bus drivers) and those who work as or for licensed child care providers, including center-based and family-based care providers, “according to the federal directive.

State health officials said earlier this week that they hoped to finish vaccinating older and more vulnerable Texans in the coming weeks and expand eligibility to include more Texans by the end of the month.

This new group was expected to include teachers before Wednesday’s announcement, but officials did not say who else would be in that new “1C” group.

The first priority groups 1A and 1B, which health officials said included more than 8 million people, included frontline health professionals, people over 65 and those of any age with medical vulnerabilities.

The early inclusion of teachers occurs as vaccine supplies increase and 2 million people, or 6.8% of the Texas population, have been fully vaccinated with both doses of the two-dose regimens.

Johnson & Johnson’s newly approved vaccine, which requires only one dose, began to be administered in Texas this week, officials said.

As of March 1, 5.7 million doses have been administered, with providers across the state administering an average of 123,469 doses of vaccine per day in the past week. None of the vaccines are approved for children under 16, who represent about 23% of the population.

The vaccine supply is still far below the demand and the number of people eligible to receive it.

The decision also comes a day after Governor Greg Abbott announced that he would allow all companies to reopen and terminated a long-term mask mandate. Many school officials, unprepared for Abbott’s decision, have chosen to continue demanding masks on their campuses and are awaiting further instructions from the state.

Educators and advocates have been pleading with the state to include teachers while implementing its vaccination program this winter and spring. After Abbott’s announcement on Tuesday, several groups of educators punished him for removing the mask requirement without prioritizing vaccine teachers.

“Abbott shied away from his responsibility to follow medical advice and clarify what needs to happen to keep our schools safe. All of the top health officials emphasized that even with vaccines we need to continue using the simplest tools to prevent spread, ”said Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, in a statement on Tuesday.

In response to Biden’s proclamation, CVS Pharmacy had previously made consultations available to educators, school staff and daycare workers in Texas and other states where it offers vaccines.

CVS is part of the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program, a collaboration between the federal government, states and pharmacies across the country.

Karen Brooks Harper contributed to this report.