The San Diego County Office of Education has set up a separate vaccine appointment system for school employees in hopes of streamlining the process, but supply issues could affect how quickly the county's educators get vaccinated. Despite the challenges, the county is making progress in its effort to vaccinate educators.
“We’ve sent out 65,000 personalized invitations to school employees so far and we’ve had 23,000 sign up for the scheduling portal,” said Laura Josh, Area VP for Veba.
Veba is the non-profit that is helping schedule appointments for San Diego County school employees.
Of the 23,000 employees who've signed up for an appointment, 20,000 have gotten at least one-shot according to Josh. The Veba appointment portal is only for school employees. San Diego County is setting aside 20% of the vaccine supply for those working in education.
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“We’ve been opening new vaccination locations. On Monday, we will open a San Marcos North County location so we’re trying to expand our footprint as we open up to more school districts,” said Josh.
The school vaccination plan began with educators working in neighborhoods where infection rates were higher, but now employees at all San Diego County schools can sign up.
“There may have been some confusion about the portal being open to the more high-risk quartile first but we want to emphasize that we are open to everyone now via the Veba channel,” said Josh.
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Josh says the biggest challenge now is making sure there is enough vaccine supply.
