By the first week of June this year, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will be close to reaching its vaccination goal of 4.1 million residents, and as all COVID-19 guidelines expire on May 29, Concord Academy is in a unique position as it transitions back into a sense of normalcy after more than a year of change.
A few weeks ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved the Pfizer-BioNTech 2-dose COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents aged twelve and up, encompassing the entirety of the student body at CA. Before the May 12 announcement, students aged sixteen and older were eligible for the vaccine, and many students received the vaccine at third-party locations not sponsored by the school. A vaccination drive of a hundred doses was sponsored by the school for community members of CA on May 15 at the Moriarty Athletic Campus, with second doses of the Pfizer shot planned to be administered on June 5.
At the time of writing, Eve Fraser-Corp from the Health Center reports that ninety-five students currently have updated vaccination records on the MyMedBot platform. However, she notes that many students may not have updated their documentation on the app as it is not a requirement yet.
The Health Center does not have access to faculty and staff immunization records, though teachers have been eligible for the vaccine since March, so it is likely that most teachers at CA have received some sort of inoculation.
The recent relaxation of mask mandates for outdoor use by CA and the loosening of COVID-19 guidelines by the state are a hopefully telling sign of the future for the school and the country to come. Perhaps, a normal 2021–22 school year is not out of reach; however, if 2020 taught the world something, it is that anything can be reality.
Photo courtesy of the United Nations