Why aren’t they vaccinating school staff?

[Billi77]

I’m sure this has been asked already, but I can’t find the reasons. Especially when schools are the apparent ‘vector’ for transmission.
And it’s clear that the vaccinated would be way less contagious, even if they do pick up the virus. And in sinister PR terms, wise for the government to be ‘rewarding’ people whose jobs are actually putting them and their loved ones in danger.

Because there's not enough vaccine to go round.

According to the BBC, there are:

0.4 million care home residents
0.7 million care home staff
3.4 million aged 80+
1.6 million front line NHS.

As of a few days ago, they'd vaccinated about a million people, leaving 5 million in those key groups to go. There's about a million doses of vaccine available this week, which will leave 4 million.

There are around half a million teachers (haven't been able to find out how many TAs/other school staff). If they were to be vaccinated now, it would leave that number of people in the most at risk groups unvaccinated.

Because the vaccine reduces severity of illness, not reduction in transmission.

Because we vaccinate those that are most likely to be severely affected by Covid, to reduce the likelihood of morbidity and mortality. Generally speaking young, healthy people (most school staff) aren’t likely to be seriously ill. And if they are by virtue of underlying health conditions or vulnerabilities they’ll be vaccinated sooner if they fall into an eligible category.

They should do any large gathering industries higher on the list

Schools
University’s staff and students
Manufacturing plants

Anywhere when high levels of staff are needed

The sooner they do school staff the less impact it will have on education.

See attached graph. Vaccinating people who are unlikely to be seriously affected by Covid will not resolve the terrible situation we currently have in many hospitals.

It might be useful to vaccinate school staff who are over 50 a bit earlier I suppose.

Testing school staff weekly would be doable if as said they are not going to be protected by vaccination

I think Russia, Argentina and Indonesia so far are vaccinating school staff and a select number of key workers in their early vaccination rollouts (they are using different vaccines to us). It will be interesting to see how this works there.
I'm school staff and while I'd like to see our group vaccinated so we can work safely in schools the current lockdown measures should enable the vulnerable to be vaccinated safely and hopefully we can then do teachers when that has happened.

@BluebellsGreenbells

They should do any large gathering industries higher on the list

Schools
University’s staff and students
Manufacturing plants

Anywhere when high levels of staff are needed

The sooner they do school staff the less impact it will have on education.

Who would you put them ahead of in the list detailed above?

They’re not closing schools to protect staff but to lower community transmission. Kids are 7x more likely to be the first member of a household with covid and more than twice as likely to pass it on to family than older family members.

Vaccinating teachers won’t re-open schools because it doesn’t solve the problem of covid running through classes and kids taking it home.

Who would you put them ahead of in the list detailed above?

Anyone who can safely isolate and be shielded

Because they don't give a fuck about us

Because the reason for shutting schools is not to protect staff, it’s to prevent wider spread between households via children being together. Vaccinating staff would do nothing to help this problem.

And while schools are shut there’s no point vaccinating school staff.

Because our vaccination priority isn't about reducing transmission, it's about reducing serious disease and death (yes, I know reducing transmission would do that too).
It is interesting that other countries are taking a different approach, but perhaps they have different levels of deaths and for them it is about reducing numbers of people catching it.

Vaccinating HCPs reduces deaths indirectly by having staff available to care for those who are sick and potentially directly because those caring for covid patients may get disproportionately more unwell due to exposure to high viral load (kind of guessing here).

@BunsyGirl

See attached graph. Vaccinating people who are unlikely to be seriously affected by Covid will not resolve the terrible situation we currently have in many hospitals.

Very interesting graph. Makes it so clear why current priorities are actually completely appropriate.

Because, first and foremost the programme is designed to reduce demand on NHS services.
If teachers are priority, they will be done accordingly.
Otherwise, better to keep those who will be more likely to get severely ill out of hospital if possible, so if the small % of younger people need treatment, it is available for them.

Vaccinating teachers won't stop children being the super spreaders

I don’t think people are understanding this. It’s not that school staff won’t be protected, it’s because vaccinating them will not reduce deaths significantly or stop the hospitals being overloaded. I believe that frontline workers (including teachers) should be given some priority once all the high risk groups are vaccinated, but not at the expense of people who are highly likely to die if they get Covid.

@BluebellsGreenbells

Who would you put them ahead of in the list detailed above?

Anyone who can safely isolate and be shielded

The elderly can shield, until they need a care home or a hospital bed. Then they are at high risk of infection and subsequently death. Shielding won't protect them from falls, stroke, heart attack, any other reason thousands of elderly or CEV people are hospitalised.

Because teachers are far less likely to die or be hospitalised with Covid than over 80s.

We don't yet have anywhere near enough vaccine for all so we have to start with those at highest risk of death and hospital admission so that we can reduce hospital Covid bed occupancy and have a chance of restarting cancer ops.

That graph really says all that needs to be said.

You need not think healthcare staff are getting vaccinated either. I don't personally know any staff who have received a vaccine despite working in the NHS for 20 years.

Nor care home staff. Lots of talk about it and 'registering'. zero actual action as yet.

Maybe Oxford will be a game changer when that gets rolled out but I am not holding my breath.

I know I'll be shot down in flames,

But ... we really need society to keep going. Why are we vaccinating 3.4 million 80 + year olds first?

Why can't teachers come before those in that category?

@2020out No worries. I got it from another thread a few days ago and saved it because I could see what was going to happen with more and more people demanding for teachers and other key workers to be vaccinated first but not understanding why the vaccine schedule has been formulated in the way it has.

Because teachers are far less likely to die or be hospitalised with Covid than over 80s

Oh sorry somebody answered before I asked the question.

Teachers are getting really sick though and some have died. Certainly a few have been hospitalised. They are often parents likely to leave children behind.

They serve their community.

By 80 you've had a good long life. I'd feel lucky to live to 80.

Elephant4 because society can not function without a health system.
By keeping the majority of those who are likely to get serious complications out of hospital, we all benefit.

@Elephant4 Did you read the thread? See attached graph.

@Elephant4

Because teachers are far less likely to die or be hospitalised with Covid than over 80s

Oh sorry somebody answered before I asked the question.

Teachers are getting really sick though and some have died. Certainly a few have been hospitalised. They are often parents likely to leave children behind.

They serve their community.

By 80 you've had a good long life. I'd feel lucky to live to 80.

Yes, sadly a few teachers have been very ill and some have died. However, if we don't concentrate on keeping those who are known to be at higher risk of complications well, lots more younger people will die because the few who may get serious complications will not be able to access healthcare.

Because people under 50 are very unlikely to die or have a serious consequence from COVID. If it wasn't killing anyone we wouldn't need lockdowns and school closures.

So we need to stop it killing and hospitalising people so that hospitals are not overun and unable to treat anyone else. Which they absolutely are right now. (All surgery apart from immediate life or limb saving is cancelled in our Trust right now including cancer surgery)

If we can eliminate those deaths and hospitalisations then it doesn't matter if it spreads as the risk of a bad outcome will be very rare (not zero but reduced to an acceptable level)

If it no longer matters if it spreads as consequences aren't serious then we can open up schools abs society and get on with life.

We can get those over 70s vaccinated quickly if we get the Oxford vaccine out there and have a mega push. I will work all the hours God sends on top of my day job to get that done.