Harrison County (West Virginia) Schools provides final round of second vaccines for teachers

“Everything went great today — we had a great turnout and no problems,” she said. “We were able to finish up our large vaccine clinic groups today and provide second doses to some employees who were unable to receive their second dose previously due to quarantines or other reasons. We also were able to provide first doses to several teachers with the extra doses that were remaining.”

After all second doses had been administered, Sperry said, clinic workers began calling active school employees who were still requesting the vaccine, in priority by age.

As a result, the school system was able to provide the vaccine to some employees under the age of 40.

“We were able to reach 39-year-old employees this week because of the extra doses,” she said. “In the last several weeks, during the second-dose clinics, the county has been able to administer 26 first-dose vaccines with the extra doses we’ve had.”

Those additional 26 school employees will be scheduled to follow up with Champion Pharmacy, which has been contracted by the state for Harrison County’s school vaccines, Sperry said.

While the vaccines will still be supplied by the state Department of Education to the pharmacy, individual appointment times will be set to get those people their second doses, since they are a much smaller group and a complete vaccine clinic is not necessary.

“The eight that we were able to give the vaccine to today were so happy — two of them were in tears because they were so excited to get the phone call,” she said. “I’m glad to be able to give out those doses. I know eight doesn’t sound like a lot unless you’re one of those eight, but every teacher we can get the vaccine to is great.”

A recent recount of active Harrison school employees who expressed interest in getting the vaccine totaled around 275, along with an additional 25 West Virginia University student teachers and 90 or so substitutes, Sperry said.

Since then, several substitutes have received appointments or have been vaccinated after meeting requirements from the state.

“Two people that I called today for vaccines had already gotten scheduled for the vaccine at other locations,” she said.

Sperry said she would estimate that around 400 school employees with an interest in the vaccine have yet to be vaccinated.

“We are slowly getting down the list, and we continue to request doses from the state,” she said. “Just this week, I messaged the state to request just a couple of hundred doses so we could finish our teachers or at least get down to age 30 since we are going back five days next week. But the Department of Education says that it’s not in their hands and it’s up to the state task force who makes the decisions of how and who the vaccine is distributed to.

“We continue to remain hopeful that they will at some point give us the remaining doses, but they haven’t given us any indication they will give us anymore.”

Sperry said the state Department of Education continues to tell county school systems to have remaining staff members register through the state’s online Everbridge portal.