While on the front line in the classroom, Douglas County’s 618 educators are in the second tier for coronavirus vaccinations when they are approved.

On Thursday, the Douglas County School District released a chart characterizing the virus’ impact so far this semester.

A total of 76 students and 30 staff members have been infected by the virus since school opened in August.

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Of those, 27 students and a dozen staff members were actively infected with the virus as of Wednesday. 

Most of the district’s cases were at its largest school, Douglas High, which had 33 of its 1,418 students infected over the semester. Nine staffers were reported to have had the disease.

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Carson Valley’s two middle schools experienced eight cases each among students, while Meneley Elementary had a half-dozen cases.

A total average of less than 2% of the staff and students in the district have been reported to have the disease.

On Thursday, Superintendent Keith Lewis indicated 11 presumptive positive coronavirus cases will affect individuals at ASPIRE, Whittell and Douglas high schools, as well as Carson Valley, Pau-Wa-Lu middle schools and Gardnerville and Scarselli elementary schools. 

While vaccinations have yet to be approved, the first in line to get those shots are on the front lines in the coronavirus battles.

While a vaccine is not currently approved for use, the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services is on standby and prepared to distribute the state’s initial allocation and has developed priorities for immunization focusing first on Nevada’s essential health care providers. 

Two vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, are showing promising results and have filed for emergency use authorization with the Food and Drug Administration, according to the state.

Nevada’s COVID-19 Vaccination Program Playbook for Statewide Operations was submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Oct. 16 by the Nevada State Immunization Program and since that time the playbook has been updated as more information is received from the CDC and the FDA related to the release of a vaccine. 

According to the plan, 154,503 critical infrastructure workers are in the top tier for receiving the double shot currently in the works. Those include medical, corrections and law enforcement and public safety personnel.

Military, teachers, transportation workers, farmers, essential retail workers are in the second tier.

The third tier includes more than 1.8 million Nevadans who are or might be at risk from the virus and the fourth includes 620,035 healthy adults.