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

Details

• Journal Article:
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Personal Author:
  Rubin, David ; Eisen, Maggie ; Collins, Sophia ; Pennington, Jeffrey W. ; Wang, Xi ; Coffin, Susan
• Description:
  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.
• Subjects:
  Adolescent Adult Aged CoronaVirus Infections COVID-19 COVID-19 Vaccines Female Humans Immunization Programs Male Middle Aged Schools School Teachers Young Adult

  More +
• Source:
  MMWR Morbidity Mortal Weekly Rep. 70(30):1040-1043
• Series:
  Weekly Report: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• DOI:
  http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7030e1
• ISSN:
  0149-2195 (print) ; 1545-861X (digital)
• Pubmed ID:
  34324479
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC8323551
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Pennsylvania
• Pages in Document:
  4 pdf pages
• Volume:
  70
• Issue:
  30
• Collection(s):
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d5b7c1a1908f2ca43045eff7edace2a74fe82a436dea678fe89a47007f7b280ad4390eb2fabaa77fcd813cd11191d16783866e2453b45d008a96b48d1077df2a
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/109047/cdc_109047_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 90.60 KB ]