Teachers may not go back even when vaccinated

By Terry Murry on Thursday, January 28th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories

PENDLETON – Umatilla County Board of Commissioners Chairman George Murdock is concerned that Gov. Kate Brown made a mistake when she pushed teachers ahead of senior citizens in the line to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

“My fear is that the state’s going to use up a huge amount of vaccine immediately, and there are lots of places in the state where the schools won’t open anyway,” he said.

Murdock, the retired superintendent of the InterMountain Education Service District, said he believes teachers in Eastern Oregon would be happy to go back to their classrooms. It’s the rest of the state that worries him.

“Across the state there are over 100,000 educators,” Murdock said. “I think when you get outside of Eastern Oregon, a lot of those vaccines are going to go to people who aren’t going to go back to school.”

Murdock said a much bigger percentage of senior citizens want to be vaccinated in comparison to the educators statewide.