- The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s largest, is requiring COVID-19 vaccination for all students ages 12 and up for in-person learning and extracurricular activities.
- Some smaller California school districts are discussing similar vaccines requirements.
- Most school districts across the country do not currently require COVID-19 vaccination for students, though experts expect this to change.
- Currently, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is approved for use in children ages 12 and up.
- The Food and Drug Administration is expected to issue a decision on COVID-19 vaccines for children under age 12 sometime this fall or winter.
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) recently approved a vaccine mandate requiring children ages 12 and older be fully vaccinated to attend in-person learning.
Students must be fully vaccinated by Oct. 31 to participate in extracurricular activities.
To attend in-person lessons, they must be fully vaccinated by Dec. 19.
LAUSD is the largest school district in the country to enact a COVID-19 vaccination requirement.
The ruling comes as infections among children are up 240 percent since July.
Severe illness remains rare in kids who contract the coronavirus, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
A small percentage of children, however, have been hospitalized with COVID-19.
Pediatricians expect that many kids and parents will be exposed to the virus this fall and winter as we head indoors.
“The vaccine is the best way to protect kids and our community from the serious and long-term effects of the virus,” Dr. Katherine Williamson, a pediatrician with Providence Mission Hospital in Orange County, California, told Healthline.
Source: healthline