TAZEWELL, VA (WOAY) – Starting this week, the Virginia Department of Health will be vaccinating Tazewell County school employees against COVID-19.
They’ll be receiving their first doses of the Moderna vaccine Thursday and Friday both this week and next.
According to Lindsey Mullins with Tazewell County Schools, it’s important that school employees are some of the first to get the vaccine because they interact with so many people every day.
“We are around a lot of people daily, and we want to make sure that if they’d like to get the vaccine, they have that availability to them,” Mullins said.
While school employees receive the vaccine, students will be learning remotely partially this week and next. That way they have enough time to get everyone vaccinated in such a short window.
“We have to do the vaccinations when we are able to get them. So we had some people upset that students aren’t going to be in the classrooms. While we apologize for that, we want to make sure that when we get them in the classroom, we want to make sure that everybody is as safe as they can be.”
It takes approximately six weeks after the second dose for the full benefits of the vaccine to take effect. The school system wanted to encourage everyone who wanted it to get the vaccine as soon as possible.
According to Tazewell County Schools Nursing Director Lisa Singleton, being in group 1-B of Virginia’s vaccination plan makes school employees some of the first to get the vaccine and receive its full benefits.
“We’re very excited that we’re on this list. So that we can be vaccinated, as we do work closely with a lot of people in the community, the public and of course children,” Singleton said.
690 Tazewell County School employees are expected to be vaccinated over the next two weeks.
