Teachers raise your hand if you want to be vaccinated. Starting next week you can be.

Great news for teachers today as Mass Gov Charlie baker announced that educators can start signing up for COVID-19 vaccinations next week. Yesterday President Joe Biden said he was directing states to make vaccines a priority to educators.

Baker said starting March 11th (next Thursday) appointments will be available for K through grade 12 employees, early childcare and school staffers. With the just approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine along with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, President Biden announced that the country will now soon have enough vaccines to get everyone vaccinated by the end of May. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is expected to arrive in the Berkshires tomorrow.

Baker and officials are targeting next month for the return of elementary students back into classrooms 5 days a week. According to officials there’s close to 400,000 educators from kindergarten through high school that need vaccinations. School Unions have been up in arms about the lack priority given to vaccinating teachers.

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Currently the state receives about 150,000 first doses of vaccine each week. With the addition of the John & Johnson vaccine now available, the state was hoping that number will increase significantly. However Baker said that he was surprised to learn that Massachusetts would only be receiving 58,000 doses of the J&J vaccine with more not expected until the end of the month.  The benefit of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is that it is a single-shot vaccine, opposed to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that require 2 shots for full effectiveness in fighting the coronavirus.