CDC AND VACCINE PRIORITY FOR OST WORKERS

CDC officials have clarified that they consider OST workers essential workers, along with teachers and child care workers with regard to vaccine priority 1-B. They have designed a COVID-19 Vaccination Communication Toolkit for Essential Workers to help employers build confidence in this important new vaccine. The toolkit will help employers across various industries educate their workforce about COVID-19 vaccines, raise awareness about the benefits of vaccination, and address common questions and concerns.

Partners are encouraged to adapt the key messages to the language, tone and format that will resonate with the organizations and industries you serve. You may place your logo on materials that have a place for your logo, but please retain the CDC URL (www.cdc.gov).

EXECUTIVE ORDER ON SCHOOL REOPENING

Last week, the new Biden administration issued an executive order on school and child care program reopening. The executive order calls for the collection of data needed to inform the safe reopening and continued operation of elementary and secondary schools, child care providers, and Head Start programs. The order also seeks to ensure that such data are readily available to state, local, tribal and territorial leaders as well as the public, consistent with privacy interests, and that such data are disaggregated by race and ethnicity.

Additional components of the order address:

• Testing materials, providing guidance needed for child care providers and Head Start programs for safely reopening and operating.
• Providing technical assistance to states, localities, tribes, and territories to support the accelerated distribution of Federal COVID-19 relief funds to child care providers.
• Identifying strategies to help child care providers safely remain open during the pandemic and beyond while the sector experiences widespread financial disruption due to increased costs and less revenue.

The CDC also recently addressed safely reopening schools and afterschool programs.

Courtesy of NAA.