Here’s when teachers in Fresno County might start getting coronavirus vaccinations

Teachers in Fresno County could begin receiving coronavirus vaccinations around March, maybe April.

Maybe.

That was the assessment Friday from the Fresno County Health Department. Uncertainty around the timeline stems from vaccine supply issues in Fresno County. Local health officials have been struggling with vaccine shortages, and early priority has been given to health care workers and the elderly.

Speaking at an online news conference Friday, Joe Prado, Fresno County’s community health division manager, said that, based on the county’s supply issues, the earliest teachers could receive their first shots would be around March or April.

Prado said doctors have been working with vaccines supplies on a “week-to-week” basis. What they need, he said, is to have a full 30-day supply.

“It’s going to be very difficult from a week-to-week (supply) to make any significant movements into another tier until we get some sort of guarantee of what that 30-day supply looks like,” Prado told reporters.

Fresno County schools reopening

News of possible teacher vaccinations comes just days after Fresno County schools received the green light to phase in more elementary students back onto campuses beginning next week.

That doesn’t guarantee schools will throw open their doors.

Districts like Fresno Unified and Central Unified have said they would keep most classrooms dark until COVID-19 infections slow to a pace that allows Fresno County to move up to the red or orange tiers under California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy.

The announcement this week allowing more young children back into classrooms marked an abrupt change for a health department that just days earlier suggested Fresno County’s case rate should fall to about 25 per 100,000 before more classrooms reopened.

On Friday, the county’s case rate stood at about 41 cases per 100,000.

What changed

David Luchini, the health department’s assistant director, said the change came after a series of discussions between local and state health officials.

“We had a lot of conversations this week with the state to see how much flexibility the locals had, what other data can we look at,” Luchini said.

Luchini said the state was “open” to allowing individual counties to examine trends such as the number of hospital beds available and positive cases to make their decision.

“We felt comfortable moving forward with allowing those schools that had already been in the phase-in reopening and had done so safely with adding more students,” Luchini said.

Fresno-area school leaders said they’ve been seeking guidance from the health department about when it might be safe to reopen middle schools and high schools.

During the same news conference, Dr. Rais Vorha, Fresno County’s interim health director, stopped short of saying exactly when he might sign off on opening high schools. However, he suggested waiting for Fresno to graduate from the most-restrictive purple tier to the red tier.

“Now that case counts are falling, we are really hoping we’ll cross that 25 threshold in the next week or so, and we want to give parents, teachers, educators, and staff a little bit of lead time,” Vohra said.

Fresno County needs to reach a rate of seven cases per 100,000 residents to move up to the red tier.

This story was originally published February 5, 2021 at 4:56 PM.