- As COVID-19 continues to spread across the globe, debates have emerged about whether or not the vaccines should be required to attend school for children who are old enough to get one.
- The United States has a long history of requiring vaccines to enter school.
- Experts say that while concerns around the use of COVID-19 vaccines in kids are understandable, they’ve been shown safe and effective in children ages 12 and up.
As the landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve with the Delta and Delta plus variant, debates have come up about whether COVID-19 vaccinations should be required to attend public schools in the fall.
Currently, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is authorized for use in children and teens ages 12 and older.
Both Pfizer and Moderna are conducting vaccine trials in children between the ages of 6 months and 11 years old. Experts expect young children to have access to the COVID-19 vaccines by the fall or mid-winter.
Several states, including Florida, Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Montana, Ohio, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Utah have already enacted legislation to ban public schools and universities from requiring students to have a COVID-19 vaccine to attend classes.
But pediatricians and public health experts point out that several other routine vaccinations are already required in the United States for children to attend childcare or school.
“Vaccine mandates have been around for a while, and they work,” Angela Shen, ScD, MPH, visiting research scientist at the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and retired captain in the U.S. Public Health Services, told Healthline.
“In the United States, we have a long history of requiring certain shots in order to go back to school to control vaccine preventable diseases,” Shen added.
Source: healthline