BATON ROUGE, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – District 14 State Senator Cleo Fields, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, is urging Gov. John Bel Edwards to include K-12 educators in the current phase of COVID-19 vaccination distribution.
That’s according to a statement released by Fields’ office Friday afternoon.
“I believe it is critical that our K-12 educators be prioritized in the current phase of distribution so that they may continue to focus on teaching and feel safe returning to the classroom,” Fields wrote in a letter to the governor.
Edwards announced on Thursday that Louisiana is receiving an increase in vaccine doses and that eligibility for the vaccines will be expanded starting Monday to a lower age group as well as certain personnel, including law enforcement, first responders, and election workers.
Click here for current COVID-19 Vaccination Information from the Louisiana Department of Health
“It is important to get as many people in the highest priority groups vaccinated as soon as we possibly can. It’s also important for emergency response leadership to be well so they can help us to manage the crisis,” Edwards said, adding that essential workers in the Priority 1B Tier 2 group are next in line for their COVID vaccines, which will include teachers. However, he said, the state does not know yet when when Pfizer doses and Moderna doses are going to increased again or when Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine will be approved for emergency use.
“We know how important it is for these individuals, too, to be vaccinated and it’s important for everybody to be vaccinated and we put them into the priority that they are because we know that it’s important,” said Edwards. “We also know, and the CDC has recently confirmed this, that the school setting, when the mitigation measures are properly adhered to, principally around masking and distancing, which requires less density in the school building with respect to the number of students there, stay at home when you’re sick and that sort of thing, that there’s not a lot of transmissions that occurs in that setting, and that is a good thing.”
“But we do want to get our teachers vaccinated as soon as we can,” Edwards continued. “They are the next order of priority, and I think that reflects the fact that we all believe that the work that they do is essential. Right now, our hands are tied because of the amount of vaccine that we are receiving. The good news is, it is increasing and we’re going to get to that in a moment. However, it is increasing, slower than we would like and it remains the limiting factor in the number of people that we can get vaccinated and how quickly we can vaccinate them.”
Fields believes that teachers should be part of the current eligibility expansion.
“I feel Louisiana should immediately expand eligibility to our educators,” adds Fields. “Their service and dedication to this great state cannot be overstated and we should ensure their service does not unduly put their health, or their families’ health, in a precarious situation.”
In his statement, Fields asserted that over half of American states have made some or all of teachers eligible to receive the vaccine and that it is imperative for Louisiana to follow suit.
“I feel Louisiana should immediately expand eligibility to our educators,” adds Fields. “Their service and dedication to this great state cannot be overstated and we should ensure their service does not unduly put their health, or their families’ health, in a precarious situation.”