California becomes first state to require COVID-19 vaccine for students

California will mandate COVID-19[feminine[feminine vaccines for students and staff from the next school year, becoming the first state in the country to require schoolchildren to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Governor Gavin Newsom made the announcement Friday morning at Denman Middle School in the Balboa Park neighborhood of San Francisco. The COVID vaccine will be added to the list of vaccines required for students to attend school in person, reports CBS SF Bay Area.

Newsom noted positive trends in the state in dealing with the pandemic, noting that the state has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country.

“California has the lowest case rate in the United States of America. We have maintained this status for some time, ”Newsom said. “Not surprisingly, this was primarily driven by one of the country’s main vaccination efforts. ”

California has administered more than 50 million doses of the vaccine, with 84% of eligible Californians receiving at least one dose, according to Newsom.

The California plan will allow all elementary to high school students to be vaccinated once the vaccine has obtained final approval from the U.S. government for different age groups.

Currently, the COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for those 16 and over, but has only granted emergency clearance to anyone 12 to 15 years of age. Once federal regulators fully approve the vaccine for this group, the state will require students in grades 7 through 12 vaccinated in both public and private schools, the Newsom office said.

The state will only require the COVID-19 vaccine for kindergarten to grade six students after the federal government gives its final approval for anyone 5 to 11 years old.

The announcement comes as infections across much of California have declined significantly over the past month. But Newsom was emboldened after easily defeating a recall effort last month following a campaign in which he underscored his commitment to vaccination mandates to end the pandemic.

The state’s vaccine mandate would go into effect six months after the federal government grants final approval. If it arrives in January, the mandate would come into effect in July.

Students would benefit from religious and medical exemptions, but the rules for how the state would enforce those exemptions have yet to be written. Any student who refused to be vaccinated would be forced to take an independent study course at home.

Until now, Newsom had left the decision on student immunization mandates to local school districts, which has led to a variety of different orders in some of the state’s larger districts.

Los Angeles and Oakland Unified have required all students over 12 to be vaccinated, but the Oakland ordinance did not set a deadline by which students must comply. LA has set the deadline for January 20.

Earlier this week, the San Diego Unified School Board approved a mandate that staff and students aged 16 and older must be fully immunized by December 20.

Newsom has made a point of being the first in the country to issue a variety of school warrants related to the pandemic.

In August, California became the first state in the United States to require all teachers and staff in public and private schools from Kindergarten to Grade 12 to be immunized or tested for COVID-19 weekly. Newsom also issued a school mask warrant earlier in the summer for classroom lessons that applies to all teachers and students.

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