SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Public School District Employees Following a District-wide Vaccination Program — Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, March 21–April 23, 2021

Details

• Personal Author:
  Rubin, David ; Eisen, Maggie ; Collins, Sophia ; Pennington, Jeffrey W. ; Wang, Xi ; Coffin, Susan
• Corporate Authors:
  Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics. ; Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Division of Infectious Disease. ; Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. PolicyLab. ; Philadelphia. Department of Public Health. Division of Disease Control. ; University of Pennsylvania.‏ ‎School of Medicine‏. Department of Pediatrics.
• Description:
  What is already known about this topic? Vaccination of school staff members has been highlighted as an important strategy to maximize the safety of in-person education of K–12 students this fall.
  
  What is added by this report? Weekly SARS-CoV-2 antigen screening tests required of all employees returning for in-school instruction in the School District of Philadelphia found a 95% lower percentage of positive test results among persons who reported receipt of 2 doses of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (0.09%) than among those who were unvaccinated (1.77%).
  
  What are the implications for public health practice? Efforts to promote COVID-19 vaccination among school staff members before the upcoming 2021–22 school year will be foundational to ensure a safe learning environment.
  
  The School District of Philadelphia reopened for in-school instruction the week of March 21, 2021, and required weekly tTesting for SARS-CoV-2, the Virus that causes COVID-19, for all employees returning to in-school responsibilities. The resumption of in-school instruction followed a mass vaccination program using the Pfizer-BioNTech 2-dose vaccine offered under a partnership between the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to all 22,808 School District of Philadelphia employees during February 23–April 3, 2021.* The subsequent mandatory tTesting program provided an opportunity to assess the percentage of positive BinaxNow point-of-care antigen tests (Abbott Laboratories) identified among school staff members based on their self-reported vaccination status (i.e., received zero, 1, or 2 vaccine doses) at the time of tTesting. During the initial 5 weeks after schools reopened, 34,048 screening tests were performed. Overall, 0.70% of tests returned a positive result. The percentage of positive test results was lower among persons who reported receipt of 2 vaccine doses (0.09%) compared with those who reported receipt of 1 dose (1.21%) or zero doses (1.76%) (p<0.001) representing a 95% reduction in percentage of positive SARS-CoV-2 test results among persons reporting receipt of 2 compared with zero doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Vaccination of school staff members has been highlighted as an important strategy to maximize the safety of in-person education of K–12 students this fall (1). These findings reinforce the importance of promoting COVID-19 vaccination among school staff members before commencement of the 2021–22 school year.
  
  Suggested citation for this article: Rubin D, Eisen M, Collins S, Pennington JW, Wang X, Coffin S. SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Public School District Employees Following a District-Wide Vaccination Program — Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, March 21–April 23, 2021. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. ePub: 23 July 2021.
  
  mm7030e1.htm?s_cid=mm7030e1_w
  
  mm7030e1-H.pdf
  
  
• Subjects:
  CoronaVirus Infections COVID-19 Educational Personnel SARS-CoV-2 School Teachers
• Source:
  MMWR: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2021; v. 70 Early Release
• Series:
  Weekly Report: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• ISSN:
  0149-2195 (print) ; 1545-861X (digital)
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Pennsylvania
• Pages in Document:
  4 pdf pages
• Volume:
  70
• Collection(s):
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:9c3b4a75ceb57a3b8d355ce5af7d025a816412d08565dd8908d3f4a7d2965c385f82f0d70df94ee6bc8bc96dfdf2383207eac160cd779f234f9bdf140982c49c
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/108301/cdc_108301_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 406.06 KB ]