Parents of middle- and high-school students in California should mark their calendars for July 1, 2022.
That's the likely deadline for children aged 12-17 to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to attend school, following California Gov. Gavin Newsom's announcement on Friday that the state will require inoculation against the coronavirus in addition to measles, mumps, rubella, polio and others.
Dr. Monica Gandhi, Professor of Medicine at UCSF and an infectious disease expert, told KCBS Radio's Jeff Bell in an interview on Friday that she expects the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize full use of the COVID-19 vaccine for 12-15-year-olds by the end of January. The Pfizer vaccine already is fully approved for anyone older than 16.
Vaccination will be required in the term following the COVID-19 vaccine's full approval.
"I do agree with their decision to wait for full approval, by the way, because the reason is that it really is the FDA doing the right thing and following out safety data," Dr. Gandhi said.
"It just gives parents more security if that safety data is followed out, even though of course many parents will be vaccinated in between," she added.
The California Department of Public Health will seek public comment as part of the rulemaking process, and officials said this will dictate the scope of the exemptions allowed. Because the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students was made by regulatory order rather than the California State Legislature, there will be an exemption for personal beliefs.
The Antioch Unified School District on Friday offered a potential preview of the conversations to come. Antioch has a full vaccination rate of 70% among eligible residents, according to Contra Costa County data, leaving the county's third-most populous city with a lower vaccination rate than all but five.
School board member Clyde Lewis has been fully vaccinated, and he would get his children vaccinated when eligible. He told KCBS Radio’s Bob Butler that conversations about mandates are "including the voices of those people who may dissent, and understand their reasons why."
Stacy Watkins, the parent of two daughters attending high school in the district, said she thought she “should have the right to choose” whether or not her children are vaccinated. Her children both want to be vaccinated, and Watkins acknowledged schools already require vaccinations – without exemptions for personal beliefs – as the "flip side" of her argument.
She said she was going to do her "own investigative work" on the vaccines' safety.
"I don't think that should be forced upon us," Watkins said. "We should have our choice, as a parent, to make that decision. Plus, they don't have any studies on long-term effects on kids such as, maybe, infertility."
A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published in August concluded a "small proportion" of vaccine reactions among 12-17-year-olds coincided with myocarditis. The agency is yet to find evidence that "any vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, cause fertility problems."
Dr. Gandhi said she agreed with the state’s decision, pointing to the “precedent” of already mandatory vaccines and to data from Los Angeles County, noting that the highest case rate during the delta variant's late-summer surge was among 12-17-year-olds.
"(Even) if that age group is not as susceptible to severe disease, (infection) can lead to transmission to others," she said. "And part of the reason for this mandate is to protect teachers, multi-generational households (and) older people."
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