BCAT News

Teachers and other members of school department staff will soon be eligible for COVID-19 vaccines, if they can get an appointment. 

On Wednesday, the Baker-Polito Administration announced that K-12 educators, child care workers and K-12 school staff will be eligible to schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments starting March 11th.

This group of workers will join the current eligible groups, including those 65+ and individuals with 2 or more medical conditions listed by the state. Educators may book appointments at all 170 sites currently open to eligible residents in Massachusetts by visiting www.mass.gov/covidvaccinemap. However, WBZ reports the administration will not be sending vaccines to individual school districts. 

“We do want to see educators get vaccinated,” they quote Baker as saying. “We’re going to move them up ahead of all the other groups that are part of the next phase of Phase 2. I don’t see how we can choose to take vaccines away from people who are over the age of 65 and significantly a risk of hospitalization and death from COVID, or people who have two comorbidities – many of which have already been proven time and time again to be terribly dangerous when it comes to COVID – and not include them going forward in the process.”

The Baker administration said they expect Massachusetts to receive approximately 150,000 doses of the first shot per week until the end of March. After that, the expectation is that the supply will increase.