SALEM, Ore. — In Salem, the mass vaccination clinic run by Salem Health has done it again. Workers there have already finished giving first-dose COVID-19 shots to teachers and people connected to schools before Portland has even started.
"Marion County Health & Human Services received permission from the Oregon Health Authority to allow the clinic to vaccinate K-12 teachers, school personnel, early learning employees (including child care), for those who live or work in Marion County, or work for Salem-Keizer Public Schools. Educators may be asked to show proof of employment in this eligibility category," wrote Lisa Wood, a spokeswoman for Salem Health.
Teachers and others connected to schools in the Salem-Keizer District started getting their shots Jan. 19 and finished up two days later.
"So, we started with our elementary and I don’t actually know the numbers of those. But total, eligible would be about 7,000 employees," said the district's superintendent Christy Perry.
Salem-Keizer is the second largest school district in Oregon with 42,000 students across 65 schools.
Gov. Kate Brown originally said teachers would be widely eligible starting next week.
Perry still doesn’t know for sure if kids will return to class by the end of February but making the shots available for everyone is big progress.
"Vaccinations for us have been something that’s been on our minds," she said. "So, that feels like a relief because we have one more layer of protection for educators as they come back into classrooms with kids. So, we’re seeing this as a huge step forward in the pandemic where we’ve struggled to find steps forward at times."
Its unclear how many of the 7,000 actually got the the first shot and the district is not asking. But the superintendent points out that everyone will eventually need to decide whether to return to the school buildings.
In Portland, it's also unclear how teachers will be notified when it's their turn. The big hospital systems are working on a unified scheduling program which they say will make things simple.
"Teachers are an organized group," said Trent Green, the Chief Operating Officer at Legacy Health. "The school districts know who their teachers are and so we will be able to communicate with them when we are ready. Here’s the process, here’s the URL to sign up."
But it is unclear when that system will be in place for the teachers group.
The Oregon Health Authority released this website Thursday, which may eventually become a useful portal for signing up for shots but when it was launched contained little, if any, help for scheduling shots.