Opinion: School vaccine mandates are best path to a post-pandemic world

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The San Diego Unified school board will meet on Tuesday to consider mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for district employees and eligible students 12 and older. The board should of course follow through, and the vote should be unanimous.

The issues are familiar and clear. A 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholds the right of local authorities to compel vaccinations to promote public health. In 2015 and 2019, the California Legislature passed measures to make it more difficult for parents to win exemptions for their children from school vaccine requirements in the wake of a measles outbreak at Disneyland and the evidence that a handful of doctors were issuing medical exemptions without proof they were justified. Already, school districts in Los Angeles and Oakland have mandated COVID-19 vaccines, on top of other vaccination requirements that every state in the nation has had since 1980 for students entering classrooms.

With U.S. deaths closing in on 700,000, it is mind-boggling that vaccines are mired in politics. More so now because as one doctor recently told CNN nearly 30 percent of new cases nationwide in recent weeks are in children under 18, a group that only makes up about 20 percent of the population.

It is welcome news that California has the lowest rate of new COVID-19 infections of any state. But the U.S. remains enmeshed in a public health emergency. It’s possible and some experts think likely that new variants of the coronavirus will emerge.

So it’s good to hear state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly say a statewide school vaccination mandate is being considered though “no definitive action or decision is being made at the moment.” It’s time to act. Vaccine mandates offer the best path to a post-pandemic world.