This story was updated March 5 at 4:30 p.m.
When Pittsburgh Public Schools begins vaccinating employees next week, it will prioritize teachers and staff serving students in kindergarten through fifth grade, elementary school bus drivers, and special education and English language services teachers, the district announced Friday.
Also on Friday, one year after the discovery of the first coronavirus case in Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf said Friday that it has been a tough and trying year, but there is hope and a light at the end of the tunnel with the growing availability of vaccines.
Vaccinations at city schools are set to begin between March 10 and 14, said Assistant Superintendent Rodney Necciai.
The district, which has more than 2,000 teachers, is still waiting to see how many vaccine doses it will receive as part of Mr. Wolf’s plan to prioritize PreK-12 educators as the state receives 94,000 doses of the recently approved Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.
Nearly all teachers in the district are expected to return to their buildings by March 22 as PPS moves forward with a phased approach to reopening to students in April that also includes precautions of mask-wearing and social distancing, the district said this week.
“This [vaccine] gives another layer of mitigation strategy to support us coming back to our environment in a healthy way,” Superintendent Anthony Hamlet said during a virtual briefing.
Teachers are not required to get the inoculation, Mr. Hamlet said, and they are still expected to come to in-person instruction even if they have not received the vaccine.
Mr. Wolf announced on March 6, 2020, that Pennsylvania had confirmed its first two cases of the new coronavirus. Since then, Pennsylvania has seen several spikes in cases, counted more than 944,000 confirmed or probable cases of the virus and attributed more than 24,200 deaths to it. More than 868,000 people have been fully vaccinated in Pennsylvania, according to the state Department of Health.
“This has been a tough year,” Mr. Wolf said, speaking at a news conference outside a Rite Aid pharmacy in Dauphin County. “I’m not sure there isn’t anybody in Pennsylvania who isn’t frustrated, sad, maybe even grieving for a loved one who has been lost. ... There’s a lot of sadness. But at this point, though, we have something we didn’t have a year ago, and that is hope. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Mr. Wolf’s comments came as new cases of COVID-19 in Pennsylvania appeared to plateau Friday with the state reporting nearly the same number of infections in the past week as the prior seven-day period.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the state saw 13,275 new cases of COVID-19 between Feb. 26 and Thursday. It was only a slight drop from the 13,294 cases the previous week.
The new data presents a slowdown in the downward trend from the last several weeks, with the previous period seeing a drop of 2,200 weekly cases. The week before brought an even greater decrease of 5,400 cases.
Fewer people receiving a test are getting positive results, however, with that number down from 6.2% to 5.7%. Average daily COVID-19 hospitalizations dropped by more than 300 and are down to 1,679.
On Friday, the state Department of Health reported 43 more people were confirmed to have died after testing positive for the virus, and there were 2,757 new infections.
The new numbers bring the state’s total to 944,196 cases and 24,262 people dead from the virus.
The vaccine effort against the virus also continues, with almost 2.8 million doses administered in the state, a jump from 2.6 million the day before, according to the department.
Allegheny County accounts for about 127,000 of those vaccinations, with the county reporting 288 new COVID-19 cases and nine newly confirmed deaths.
The dates of death range from Dec. 9 to Wednesday, the county reported, due to some additional data from the statewide Electronic Death Reporting System. Five of the deaths were associated with long-term care facilities.
Among those people who died, three were in their 60s, three were in their 70s, two were in their 80s and the oldest was above 90.
The new cases come from 185 confirmed tests and 103 probable positives, the county said. The infected people ranged in age from 4 to 91 years, making for a median age of 38.
In total, the county has seen 77,803 cases of COVID-19, with 5,142 hospitalizations and 1,697 deaths.
More information about COVID-19 and vaccines can be found on the county’s dashboard and the Pennsylvania Department of Health website.
The Associated Press contributed. Mick Stinelli: mstinelli@post-gazette.com; 412-263-1869; and on Twitter: @MickStinelli
First Published: March 5, 2021, 5:52 p.m.
Updated: March 5, 2021, 10:58 p.m.
