There is a big caveat, though
California pushes 1st US vaccine mandate for schoolchildren
California is poised to impose the nation’s first coronavirus vaccine mandate for schoolchildren, a move announced Friday that could push other states to follow as many did after Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the first statewide stay-at-home order in the U.S. during the early days of the pandemic.
Newsom said the mandate won’t take effect for all children until the U.S. government has finished fully vetting the vaccine for two age groups — 12 to 15 and 5 to 11. That means those in seventh to 12th grades probably will have until July to get their shots. It will be even longer for children in kindergarten through sixth grades because the government has yet to approve any COVID-19 vaccine for that age group.
California law requires all children enrolled in public and private schools to have 10 immunizations, with exceptions for medical reasons. For the coronavirus vaccine, California will grant exemptions for medical reasons, plus religious and personal beliefs. The rules for those exemptions will be written after the state hears comments from the public. Any student without an exemption who refuses to get the vaccine would be forced to do independent study at home.
The mandate eventually will affect more than 6.7 million public and private school students in the nation’s most populous state. California already has a mask requirement for schoolchildren.
Now, call me crazy, but, I find that this is within the power of the state to require vaccination. It’s mostly not the federal government which mandates vaccines for schoolkids, it’s the states. That power was assigned to them by the Constitution and 10th Amendment, so, this is a lot more Constitutional than Joe’s federal mandate. Of course, if we go by the Gun Grabbers argument, these vaccines weren’t around back then, so, they shouldn’t be mandated now.
That said, why announce it now, when it won’t be till next summer, at the earliest, when there will be full vetting of the Chinese coronavirus vaccines? What is the point of doing this so early? And, it is certainly not vetted, like, say, the smallpox vaccine, which requires 5 shots and gives almost 100% protection against the disease, which means that smallpox has been eradicated from Earth. And, if someone with the smallpox vaccination is around someone with smallpox, they won’t catch it. Not have light symptoms, they won’t catch it.
Regardless, once fully vetted (usually, this takes years, though), I’m not against safeguarding kids.
There’s also a second caveat
Newsom hasn’t backed all vaccine mandates, however. He recently opposed a requirement for prison guards that a federal judge imposed. Critics used that example to say Newsom is driven more by politics than science, noting the labor union of corrections officers had donated to his campaign to defeat the recall.
Hmm, so no vax mandate for prison guards?
California’s largest teachers unions back the vaccination mandate, as does the California Association of School Boards.
“This is not a new idea. We already require vaccines against several known deadly diseases before students can enroll in schools,†said Dr. Peter N. Bretah, president of the California Medical Association. “The Newsom administration is simply extending existing public health protections to cover this new disease, which has caused so much pain and suffering across our state, our nation and the entire globe over the last 18 months.â€
There’s actually a 3rd caveat
Newsom will not as yet require CA teachers and staff to get vaccine even though their students will have to get the jab. pic.twitter.com/A3uFuGKc67
— Jill Tucker (@jilltucker) October 1, 2021
Kids don’t donate to Newsome’s election chest. They are required, though, to get the vaccine or take COVID tests. And
The vaccine mandate also would apply to teachers and staff in K-12 public and private schools. Newsom already had required them to either get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing, but once the mandate for students takes effect, the testing option won’t be available for teachers anymore.
So, he won’t require teachers to be vaxxed or axed till basically the next school year.
I also understand that all the other CA vaccines mandated for kids were in legislation and not some kind of executive order. So a fourth caveat is to be legal the mandate may need to be legislated.
William Teach: And, it (Covid vaccine) is certainly not vetted, like, say, the smallpox vaccine, which requires 5 shots and gives almost 100% protection against the disease, which means that smallpox has been eradicated from Earth.
According to experts, the smallpox vaccine’s effectiveness is 95% with strong immunity lasting 5 years and partial immunity persisting for 10 years or more.
Note too that smallpox, although 30% fatal, is not as easily transmissible as Covid or influenza.
In some nations, smallpox was eradicated with vaccination rates as low as 50% by contact tracing and targeted vaccination of contacts.