Teachers should be among first to get COVID-19 vaccine, Rep. Alma Adams urges CDC
Teachers should be among the first groups to get the COVID-19 vaccine, U.S. Rep. Alma Adams told the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a letter with 24 congressional colleagues on Friday.
“Prioritizing COVID-19 vaccinations for K-12 educators and school personnel recognizes the essential work of these individuals,” the Charlotte Democrat wrote.
Vaccinating teachers would make for “a safer return to in-person instruction, and provides the means necessary for tens of millions of workers to support the economy,” Adams and her colleagues wrote Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC in Atlanta.
“This reality must be reflected in our nation’s vaccine distribution strategy,” according to the letter.
While states control distribution of the vaccine, Adams wrote, the CDC “plays an important role in informing the strategies employed to do so.”
Three organizations dedicated to higher education for Black people want Adams to be the next Secretary of Education in the Biden administration, McClatchy News reported on Wednesday.
Leaders from the United Negro College Fund, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education said they wrote and spoke with Biden officials about Adams, and were waiting to hear back.
Health care workers receive COVID-19 vaccine
Front-line health care workers have begun receiving the vaccine in Charlotte and across the country.
On Friday, new cases in Mecklenburg County set a single-day record at 937 confirmed infections, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
The number of hospitalized coronavirus patients in Charlotte spiked over the last week to a daily average of 298 people, up from less than 200 on average at the end of November, The Charlotte Observer reported on Friday.