Some California school districts are offering COVID vaccines to their teachers and staff in hopes of returning to any sort of normal in-person schooling. In Tulare County, however, phase 1 of vaccines is still being completed. Phase 1 consists of three sub-phases, phase 1A and phase 1B, and phase 1C. Phase 1A is being geared towards healthcare workers such as doctors and nurses, lab and long-term care workers. Phase 1B is intended to cover “frontline essential workers” those that work in public transportation, or child care workers, and postal workers among others.

Neither sub-phases within phase 1 include teachers, school staff, or even students, and looking further down the roll-out plan into phase 1C students are still not factored into the plan with 1C being intended for “Other essential workers” to include media, utility workers, and food service workers among other groups.

So unless you are a COS student who falls into one of the groups for phase 1A or 1B chances are that obtaining the vaccine might be put off for a few more months, as demand is high and supplies are currently not able to keep up. But how many COS students would get the vaccine if able to? A recent poll conducted on the COS Giant Student Connection page and the COS Giant Twitter page found that 22% of COS students who participated in the poll stated they would not get the vaccine if allowed. With 13% still undecided on if they want to get the vaccine. Two COS students had already received the vaccine due to the jobs they currently hold.

The desire of COS students to resume in-person classes is not enough to sway their decisions on receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Some like me feel as though there is not enough information on either vaccine or knowledge of long-term effects, especially as some around the country have already experienced some short-term side effects from both vaccines. Until the vaccine is made available to COS students we will not know how students actually receive the vaccine and what kind of role that will play in the school’s ability to open back up for in-person classes.