Teachers at a wealthy private high school in North Hollywood were able to get COVID-19 vaccines more than two weeks before other educa...
Teachers at a wealthy private high school in North Hollywood were able to get COVID-19 vaccines more than two weeks before other educators were given the green light by local health officials.
Educators at the Wesley School, where tuition can range from $28,460 to $32,020, were tapped by the Northridge Hospital Medical Center to get immunized from the virus through what they described as a 'special program.'
'Many parents have expressed concern for the well-being of our teachers in these challenging times,' school administration said in a Tuesday statement, the Los Angeles Times reports.
'Therefore, we wanted to share that through a special program for essential workers and educators, all Wesley employees who wanted to be vaccinated were able to take advantage of an offer last week and received their first dose.'
Educators at the Wesley School, where tuition can range from $28,460 to $32,020, were tapped by the Northridge Hospital Medical Center to get immunized
The update continued: 'As you can imagine, this is incredibly significant for our faculty and staff as we continue with our return to school rollout.'
The special program has raised eyebrows for educators from other schools in the area, who wonder how the teachers were chosen given the shortage of vaccines.
Northridge Hospital Medical Center said 'tens of thousands' of healthcare workers and seniors have been vaccinated, CBS Los Angeles reports. They added that they reached out to both private and public schools to see if teachers wanted access to the 100 doses they had left over.
The elite school added in a statement that it was 'grateful to be contacted' for the program.
'We firmly believe that vaccinating educators is critical to returning students to in-person learning. We were therefore grateful to be contacted by a local hospital in January indicating that it was creating a list of teachers and other essential workers who wished to be vaccinated when the vaccine became available,' the school said in a statement attributed to Interim Head of School Julie Galles.
'When the hospital notified us that vaccine was available, some of our teachers scheduled appointments and received the first dose of the vaccine. We strongly urge public health officials to prioritize vaccination for all educators.'
Galles would also tell the Times that while there were those teachers who took the hospital's vaccine, others actually fell within the actual criteria to get the vaccine in Los Angeles County.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, a public district, turned down the opportunity to have their teachers vaccinated through the program.
'We sought clarification from the Los Angeles County Health Department as to whether vaccine doses are only available to teachers over the age of 65, consistent with current guidelines, or if Northridge Hospital was operating under a different set of rules that would allow any teacher to be vaccinated regardless of age,' the district said in a statement.
'The County confirmed that currently vaccines are only available for healthcare workers and those over 65 and thanked us for following proper procedures. The County is looking into this issue.'
Facing a severe vaccine shortage, Los Angeles moved to temporarily close five major inoculation centers including its giant Dodger Stadium site Thursday, even as California this week topped the nation's pandemic death toll.
Northridge Hospital Medical Center said 'tens of thousands' of healthcare workers and seniors have been vaccinated. They added that they reached out to both private and public schools to see if teachers wanted access to the 100 doses they had left over
Los Angeles received only 16,000 doses of vaccine this week, Mayor Eric Garcetti said, despite having administered just over 13,000 doses per day in recent weeks. The city has so far delivered 293,000 shots among its 4 million residents.
First injections of the Moderna vaccine will run out Thursday evening, the mayor added, with sites including the Dodgers baseball stadium -- one of the nation's largest such operations -- not expected to reopen until Tuesday earliest.
Until then, inoculation services in surrounding Los Angeles county will be restricted to second shots.
So far, only health workers, nursing home residents, and residents over 65 are eligible to receive the vaccine in the county.
Even so, health authorities have announced plans to extend vaccination to other 'essential' professions, including teachers, within the next two to three weeks.
'It's always going to be hard when you have scarcity to figure out who goes first,' L.A. County Department of Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said about essential workers getting access to the vaccine.
Most Los Angeles schools have been closed since last March due to the pandemic, with political and public pressure to reopen schools mounting.
Despite a recent sharp decline in statewide cases, California this week surpassed New York as the US state with most reported Covid deaths.
While New York was hit severely in the pandemic's early months, California -- the nation's most populous state -- became a major Covid-19 infection epicenter this winter.
More than 45,000 Californians have died due to coronavirus.
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