Teachers in Ontario's highest-risk neighbourhoods eligible for vaccination next week

Ontario will begin vaccinating education staff in high-priority neighbourhoods starting next week.

Premier Doug Ford revealed details about how the province will focus on vaccinating communities hardest hit by COVID-19 during the Stay-at-Home order.

Education staff who work with students with special needs and all school staff in neighbourhoods with high infection rates will be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine next week.

As supply allows, Ontario will expand that eligibility to educators in other neighbourhoods.

“Our education workers are frontline champions,” Ford said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

The move comes after teaching unions pressured the province to vaccinate teachers or close schools.

Ontario officials announced the province’s second Stay-at-Home order would begin at 12:01 am Thursday to curb rising COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations.

Schools will stay open during the Stay-at-Home order, except in areas where local health units have ordered them closed. Toronto and Peel already dismissed staff and students earlier this week to curb COVID-19 spread.

Ontario schools reported 719 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. Of those, 571 are student cases.

Ontario reported 3,215 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, meaning cases tied to schools account for more than one-fifth of all newly discovered infections.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce encouraged all students to get a COVID-19 test over the April spring break before returning to school. He announced pharmacies will now offer asymptomatic testing to facilitate this.

The province will not be implementing school-wide testing and instead urged families to seek testing on their own time.

Lecce also said COVID-19 symptom screening would be stronger when students return to school after the break.

• See also:
  • All Toronto schools closing as of Wednesday
  • Peel opening COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to everyone 50 and up this week
  • York Region hotspot vaccination appointments fill up in one hour

Ontario will also be conducting mobile vaccination clinics to reach residents in COVID-19 hotspots. These mobile immunization teams will visit shelters, residential buildings, high-risk workplaces, as well as churches, mosques, and synagogues, to deliver doses.

Ford hopes 40% of Ontarian adults will have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by the time the Stay-at-Home order ends in four weeks.