AC School News: Teachers and staff to get vaccines

Anderson County Schools announced on Monday that it is no longer accepting new applications for virtual learning.

Those teachers in the Anderson County school system who wish to receive it will get their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine on one day in one single location.

Officials say that the school system signed up to be a vaccine provider, meaning that school employees will not have to make their own appointments through the state to receive the vaccine. Staff members at K-12 schools and child care centers became eligible to receive the vaccine under the state’s COVID-19 Vaccination Plan on Monday.

One of the upsides of doing it in-house will be the fact that the school system’s own nurses, who have received special COVID vaccination training, can gather everyone in one single location and get shots into arms relatively quickly.

Officials say that the school system had to purchase special refrigerators to store their vaccine doses safely, and data loggers that track the temperature inside those refrigerators. Whenever the first shipment of vaccines arrive, officials say that a vaccination clinic will be held in a school gym on a Friday, so that teachers will have the weekend to overcome any adverse side effects from the vaccine. On that day, which has not yet been scheduled, students will have the day off.