Teachers and other educators should be considered frontliners and be put on the priority list for the COVID-19 vaccine, a union has argued.

Offering educators the the vaccine would reduce the risk of schools being understaffed, or functioning haphazardly, due to sporadic outbreaks, or individual cases, the Union of Professional Educators - Voice of the Workers said.

Health Minister Chris Fearne has already said frontliners and the elderly will be the first to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in the first weeks of 2021. Letters will be sent out to the priority list of people, offering them an appointment for the jab.

The first to be vaccinated will be people who come in contact with the vulnerable - such as nurses, pharmacists, police and civil protection officials - and those aged over 80. 

Once these groups are covered, vulnerable and younger people will be eligible for the vaccination.

Welcoming the news about the imminent arrival of the COVID-19 vaccine in Malta, the union said educators should also be prioritised.

It noted that because of cases found in schools and the consequent periods of self-isolation, or quarantine, educators have been burdened both in terms of work as well as psychologically as a result of the anxiety, stress, and strain.

Last month the Superintendent of Public Health, Charmaine Gauci, said measures in schools are working and that while authorities were seeing some school staff test positive, they were not seeing transmission between pupils.