Prospects for vaccinating every teacher for the novel coronavirus before public schools reopen are unrealistic due to a limited supply of vaccines, National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci said in an interview on Wednesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th February, 2021) Prospects for vaccinating every teacher for the novel coronavirus before public schools reopen are unrealistic due to a limited supply of vaccines, National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci said in an interview on Wednesday.
"If you are going to say that every single teacher needs to be vaccinated before you get back to school, I believe quite frankly... that that's a non-workable situation," Fauci told CBS news.
Fauci's remarks come amid a national outcry regarding reopening public schools, a process that has been hampered by objections from teachers' unions that have close ties to the Democratic Party.
Republicans on the other hand, advocate reopening schools, citing success of Catholic and other private schools in resuming classroom teaching months ago.
"You want to put a good effort to get as many [teachers vaccinated] as you can as quickly as you can, but you don't want to essentially have nobody in school until all the teachers get vaccinated," Fauci said.
Schools can be safely opened with widespread use of protective gear such as masks and other mitigation measures such as smaller classrooms, Fauci added.
When asked when the vaccine would be broadly available to the general public, Fauci said the target is July, and not April as once anticipated - due to delays in production of a third vaccine by Johnson & Johnson in addition to those from Pfizer and Moderna.
