WEST LEBANON — Public health officials are planning two vaccination clinics geared to about 2,000 school employees working on the New Hampshire side of the Upper Valley later this month.
The clinics, slated for March 20 and 27 at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, are intended for teachers, bus drivers, classroom aides, substitute teachers and anyone else who is critical to the function of their New Hampshire school regardless of their state of residence, Alice Ely, executive director of the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley, said in an interview Thursday.
The health council is working directly with K-12 schools, both public and private, to identify and register staff who want to be vaccinated. Individuals cannot sign up for these clinics on their own.
“We have to know ahead of time exactly who’s showing up,” Ely said. “There’s a tremendous amount of work right now going into this.”
In addition, the health council is already beginning to reach out to area child care providers and Ely said her organization is “pretty confident” that it can get most child care workers vaccinated by the end of the March 27 clinic.
“We’ll have capacity for each of those (clinics) for 1,000 people,” she said. Many of the vaccination slots will be taken up by staff at big school districts, including Lebanon, Hanover, Claremont and Mascoma, Ely said.
Under New Hampshire’s vaccination plans, school staff can begin to register for vaccines on their own through vaccines.nh.gov on March 17.
“It’s possible you could register on the 17th and get vaccinated on the 19th,” Ely said.
The vaccine doses come from the state, and it’s unclear whether they will be the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shots or one of the two-dose vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer.
Some, and perhaps all, school staff will likely need to return for a second shot.
In Vermont, K-12 school employees and child care workers this week are beginning vaccinations in clinics at some school sites.
They also are eligible to receive shots at some other locations in the state.
WEST LEBANON — The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services will have small COVID-19 vaccination teams at both the Lebanon and Claremont vaccination sites on the days when the larger team is at the other site, a spokesman said.
The state’s sites at the former JCPenney in West Lebanon and River Valley Community College in Claremont share staff and have been open on alternating days, but now will have at least some vaccination staff present each day they are operating.
The move comes after as many as 20 Granite State residents showed up at the Lebanon site on Tuesday, based on the date on the vaccination card they got at their first dose, only to learn it was closed, before being directed to Claremont and a “handful” of others did the opposite on Wednesday, said Jake Leon, a spokesman for DHHS, in an email.
State employees call those with second-dose appointments scheduled at sites with shared staff to ensure they have the correct date, but still some people have shown up based on the date written on the back of the card, Leon said.
While the Lebanon and Claremont sites have been the most affected by this mix-up, it has happened “a few times” at other sites around the state, Leon said.
PLAINFIELD — Middle school students moved from in-person to remote learning after an employee at Plainfield Elementary School tested positive for COVID-19 this week, the superintendent said.
Students began learning remotely on Wednesday and are slated to continue in that format through Monday, according to the school’s website.
The shift in learning models was necessary due to quarantine requirements following the positive case, said Superintendent Cory LeClair in an email.
She did not know whether the case was tied to seven recent cases at Kimball Union Academy in nearby Meriden, but said there has not been any transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19 in the Plainfield school.
Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com and Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com.
