Burnaby teachers are calling on Fraser Health to prioritize them for COVID-19 vaccination – or at least explain why they’re not getting the shots while teachers in surrounding districts are.
“Between April 4 and 10, Burnaby had 475 new COVID-19 cases in the community, the fourth highest in Metro Vancouver after Surrey, Vancouver and the Tri-Cities,” wrote Burnaby Teachers’ Association president Daniel Tetrault in a press release Thursday. “As of April 21, Burnaby had 21 schools with exposures including a number of classes and students required to isolate. Despite the increase in cases, Burnaby is one of the only districts in the Metro Vancouver area that has not been included in the vaccine prioritization.”
Tetrault said he’s happy teachers in other Metro Vancouver districts have been prioritized but the Burnaby school district has seen “a continued and concerning growth in COVID-19 cases,” and he’s calling on the health authority to get school staff in this city vaccinated.
“These are teachers and school staff that are going in every day with 30 kids in their class in some cases and seeing and hearing about all these exposures and kids in their class and school having to isolate, so it’s very anxiety inducing,” he told the NOW.
Tetrault said teachers were told over spring break that they and other essential workers would be vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine by the end of April, but weren’t given any more information after that plan was paused because of concerns the vaccine was linked to rare blood clots.
“Without any new information, teachers feel like they’re left to fend for themselves,” Tetrault said.
Teachers over 40 are now “frantically” trying to book AstraZeneca shots, but about a third of the Burnaby school district’s staff is under 40 and have been left with no options, Tetrault said.
He said Fraser Health has given local teachers “no rationale or additional information” to explain why Burnaby teachers have not been prioritized for vaccinations – or when they will be vaccinated.
In a letter to schools Wednesday, Fraser Health medical health officer Ariella Zbar said the health authority will be providing vaccinations to eligible staff in each of the school districts in the health region over the coming weeks.”
“We continue to book communities based on transmission risk and other epidemiological data,” states the letter.
The letter doesn’t specify a time teachers in Burnaby will get their shots, saying only that Fraser Health will reach out to school principals directly to say when their staff are to be vaccinated.
That’s not good enough, according to Tetrault, especially considering schools are still operating in stage 2 of the province’s K-12 Education Restart Plan despite record-high case counts in recent weeks.
He noted the only change in schools in response has been an expanded mask mandate.
“Not only are you not vaccinating teachers, but you aren’t making schools safer when there’s increasing numbers across the province and variants are creeping in,” he said.
On a practical level, Tetrault also noted a lot of people who work at Burnaby schools live in hotspots, like Surrey, where teachers are being prioritized for vaccination.
“They live in hotspots, they work in hotspots, and yet they’re not being vaccinated,” he said.
Tetrault called the situation “frustrating and disappointing” and called on the health authority to “immediately include Burnaby school staff in the vaccine roll-out.”
When asked why Burnaby teachers haven't been prioritized while staff in surrounding school districts have, Fraser Health spokesperson Dixon Tam reiterated Zbar's message.
"We are continuing to manage high-risk and high-priority areas as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic throughout our region," he said in an emailed statement. "While we continue to plan to immunize all school-based staff in our region, we are starting with communities that are experiencing the highest transmission of COVID-19."
Tetrault called the health authority's explanation "vague" and said local teachers deserve better.
“If we’re doing such a good job, show us the data," he said. "At the very least, show us why we’re not getting the vaccine when everyone around us is and where numbers are so high in the community and exposures are so high in schools.”
