The nation's teachers should be "a priority" for getting COVID-19 vaccinations, according to Vice President Kamala Harris, but she isn't saying if she thinks giving them shots should be a requirement before the nation's schools reopen.
"[Teachers] are critical to our children's development," Harris told NBC "Today" anchor Savannah Guthrie Wednesday morning. "They should be able to teach in a safe place and expand the minds and the opportunities of our children. So teachers should be a priority along with other frontline workers."
However, she said that states are making the decisions individually about where teachers fall on the list of who is getting the vaccinations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already issued guidance saying teachers do not need to be vaccinated before returning to in-person classrooms.
She also stressed that the key to making sure schools can reopen safely is for Congress to pass another COVID-19 relief package.
"We can talk about natural disasters, like what is happening in Texas and the Mid-Atlantic," said Harris. "With the issue of COVID, it has been a disaster that is still going."
Meanwhile, the CDC's guidance says the reopening of schools should be tied to the rate of community infection. Harris would not say if she thinks the agency is mistaken, but said that the guidance is a recommendation about how to reopen safely and stay open.
"The issue here is not just about statistics — it's about our kids, it's about their parents," Harris said. "It's about the fact that every day our kids are missing essential, critical days in their educational development."
Harris also noted that it is also a priority to get vaccines into the arms of all Americans.
"As the president said last night, we expect that that will be done, in terms of having the available supply, by the end of July, and so we are very excited about that," she said. "We're excited about what we've been rolling out ... we have a whole program that we've rolled out, getting 1 million vaccines to pharmacies. We are getting vaccines to community health centers, very important, to supplement what the states are doing. We want to make sure we get it directly into communities."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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