SACRAMENTO, Calif.— California is sticking with its coronavirus vaccine mandate for schoolchildren, but it won’t happen until at least the summer of 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration announced Thursday.
Last year, California was the first state to announce it would require all schoolchildren to receive the coronavirus vaccine. But it hasn’t happened yet because Newsom said he was waiting for regulators at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to give final approval to the vaccine for school-aged children.
At the time, Newsom estimated the mandate would take effect for the start of the 2022-23 school year. But while federal regulators have authorized use of the coronavirus vaccine for children as young as 5 in an emergency, it has still not given final approval to anyone younger than 16.
“So based on these two facts — we don’t have full FDA approval, and we recognize the implementation challenges that schools and school leaders would face — that we are not moving to have a vaccine requirement for schools in this coming academic year and no sooner than July 2023,” California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said in an interview.
The move comes at a time when coronavirus cases and hospitalizations remain low following the winter surge of the omicron variant, but also as authorities struggle to convince parents to vaccinate their children against the virus.
While nearly 75% of California’s population has been vaccinated, rates for children 17 and under are much lower. Just under 34% of children between the ages of 5-11 have received the vaccine, while just over 66.4% of children ages 12-17 have gotten it, according to state data.
“From a perspective of keeping children in schools, this was the right move,” said Christina Hildebrand, president and founder of A Voice for Choice Advocacy, a group that opposes vaccine mandates. “The number of children that are unvaccinated, and if they were removed from school, would have been a much bigger disaster.”
California and Louisiana are the only states that have announced a vaccine mandate for K-12 schools, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. The District of Columbia also has a mandate.
