BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) - While the state is urging teachers, police, firefighters, transit workers, and those above the age of 75 to schedule a time in the coming weeks to get a vaccine, few details on exactly how the process will work have been revealed.
The governor said more places like pharmacies and urgent care centers will be allowed to administer a vaccine as early as Monday.
"Monday you can make a reservation but it's going to take 14 weeks," Governor Cuomo said. "We're talking 14 weeks until the federal supply has increased."
What will this mean specifically for teachers remains unclear. Multiple educational professionals WBEN spoke to are unsure of how this will impact schools for the remainder of the school year.
"We don't know if everybody is going to want to be vaccinated," Mike Cornell, Superintendent at Hamburg Schools and President of the Erie Niagara Superintendent's Association, said. "We don't know what the overall participation in the vaccination program will be across the county. There's a lot of variables that will impact that. To try and predict what impact vaccinating school personnel will have on how we operate is difficult to know, and frankly, our focus is on today and making sure we are operationalizing our plan to operate schools safely under the New York State Department of Health's micro-cluster program."
Similarly, a spokeswoman for Buffalo Public Schools said they're excited for the opportunity for their front-line staff to receive a vaccine, but they too want clarity from the state.
Phil Rumore, President of the Buffalo Teacher's Federation, said there should be an option for teachers to continue working from home because other people who are deemed essential workers, like grocery store workers, can receive the vaccine first.
"If you let me work remotely then you can give my shot to someone who cannot work remotely from home," Rumore said. "The way you're going to keep everybody safe is to make sure the people that can work from home, like teachers who are willing to work from home virtually like they have been doing, can do so so you can free up the shots to those people who cannot work from home and losing money and wages and putting people at risk."
Governor Cuomo said the priority is still vaccinating all health care workers first. Those in "1B" will be vaccinated based on the percentage within that group. The governor said people age 75 and older represent 45% of the "1B" population.
"Whatever we get, we'll distribute regionally by percentage and 45% of that will go to 75 year olds," Cuomo said.
There are 3.2 million New Yorkers in Phase 1B, including 870,000 education workers. That means 27% of the vaccines dedicated to phase 1B will go towards teachers.
