What to Know
- 94,600 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will arrive this week in Pennsylvania as school districts face pressure to bring students back to classrooms for in-person instruction.
- The doses will be divvied out from the state to county Intermediate Units, which are county-level education agencies.
- The Intermediate Units will then organize vaccination clinics for teachers and school staff.
About 200,000 Pennsylvania teachers, school staff and bus drivers will be eligible to receive the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, starting this week, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said Wednesday.
Wolf said he is hopeful that enough of the J&J doses will arrive in Pennsylvania this week and next week to get all of the state's educators vaccinated. He added that with that timeframe, in addition to a necessary 1-2 week wait for the vaccine to fully take effect, a return to school is possible statewide within four weeks.
"We should have the bulk of our educators able to back to work by the end of the month," Wolf said.
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Aa bipartisan legislative task force earlier this week agreed that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be set aside for teachers and other school workers considered to be essential.
State officials say 94,600 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will arrive this week as school districts face pressure to bring students back to classrooms for in-person instruction. Education groups say vaccinating school staff is an “absolutely essential” step toward reopening schools and keeping them open.
The state is still in Phase 1A of its vaccine plan, offering the shots to people age 65 and over and younger people with high-risk medical conditions — a population that numbers around 4 million.
Teachers were previously grouped in Phase 1B for the two-shot Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
