California schools drop vaccine requirement
LOS ANGELES, Calif. (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - In a major reversal, California is calling off its COVID vaccine requirement for all students to get back into school.
The order was originally going to take effect this summer. However on Friday, the State Health Department abandoned the plan altogether.
"Maybe it’s not absolutely necessary, especially for kids."
Joel Schweiger has two high-school aged kids in LAUSD; his kids were COVID vaccinated, but he says he understand why the state is changing course and not requiring the COVID vaccine for students.
"I can see why some parents are like, 'My kid already had COVID. They had the one shot, two shot. I think we’re done.'"
Impact
Governor Gavin Newsom will end the Coronavirus Emergency on February 28th. This means any new COVID vaccine requirements would have to move through the legislature.
Back in 2021, it was announced the state would add the COVID-19 vaccine to its list of required vaccinations. That mandate was delayed until summer of 2023. As of now, the order is being canceled altogether.
"These vaccines are an excellent tool."
Dr. Anne Rimoin is a Professor of Epidemiology at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health. She says even without a mandate, people should still get vaccinated.
"Mandates are disappearing across the board here. It’s really going to be up to the individual to think about the choices they're making. And the impact of those choices will be."
Person to person
Dr. Ilan Shapiro is a pediatrician and the Chief Health Correspondent for Alta Med.
"The moment we started the conversation a few years back we didn’t know a lot of things. We thought the vaccines would act a different way and the vaccines would act a different way. And right now, and the same way as influenza...the information we have…still get vaccinated," Shapiro spoke.
So as COVID mandates go away, the decision to get vaccinated will change person to person.
"Now if someone has a medical condition or where their immune system isn’t strong as youngsters… but most of them probably don’t," Schweiger concluded.
State health, teachers union, and the LAUSD did not comment on the matter.
