The city of Long Beach will move forward Monday and begin administering COVID-19 vaccinations to educators and school staff, Mayor Robert Garcia announced Sunday.
"Its a huge step forward towards protecting educators and safely school campuses," Garcia tweeted. "I look forward to welcoming them at the Long Beach Convention Center."
The mayor told NBCLA in an interview Sunday that he believed Long Beach was the first city in the state to advance to vaccinating teachers and educators.
Garcia said that the vaccines will be available to employees of the Long Beach School District initially, with the city expanding to city college employees starting Wednesday.
"Ideally, there would be enough vaccine from the state so we could get get all of our teachers done immediately, but there just isn't that level of supply yet. It's going to take us weeks to get through educators, so it'll be a few weeks from now until we really start getting a vast majority of all the teachers in public schools--we also have some private schools, as well.
The mayor added, "It's still going to take us a while, but at least we're getting started."
