California Won’t Mandate COVID-19 Vaccines for School Attendance

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a children's mental health program at McLane High School in Fresno, Calif., on Aug. 18, 2022. (Courtesy of Office of Gov. Gavin Newsom)

California won’t mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for children to attend school as state health officials back away from a plan that was originally announced in 2021 by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The California Department of Public Health “is not currently exploring emergency rulemaking to add COVID-19 to the list of required school vaccinations, but we continue to strongly recommend COVID-19 immunization for students and staff to keep everyone safer in the classroom,” the department said in a statement, according to The Associated Press. “Any changes to required K-12 immunizations are properly addressed through the legislative process.”

Newsom also will no longer be able to quickly authorize any new pandemic-related restrictions on Californians as the state exits the COVID-19 emergency period on Feb. 28.

Newsom issued the first statewide stay-at-home order in the United States on March 19, 2020, and announced the plan to vaccinate more than 6.7 million public and private school students with the COVID-19 vaccine in October 2021. The state already had a mask mandate.

“We have to do more,” he said during a news conference at the time, after visiting with seventh graders. “We want to end this pandemic. We are all exhausted by it.”

In 2022, California delayed the plan to mandate vaccination for school kids until the summer of this year as state officials awaited final approval from the Food and Drug Administration. However, with the number of cases declining considerably, emergency authorizations regarding the pandemic are being pulled back.

Recent revelations regarding some of the adverse effects of the vaccine might have also played a part in the policy reversal.

mRNA Vaccine Reactions for Children

Researchers in North Carolina found that children with natural immunity to COVID-19 were better protected against infection compared to those who were vaccinated.

Nonvaccinated children between the ages of 5 and 11 who were infected and carried natural immunity had 88.4 percent protection against reinfection compared to 59.7 percent protection offered by a primary series, or two doses, of mRNA vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna, the study showed.

A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that more than 1,600 children ages 5 to 11 experienced systemic reactions such as fever, diarrhea, and vomiting after receiving an updated Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.