The State of California has scrapped a plan to require the coronavirus vaccine for children in grades K through 12, as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) allows a three-year-old “state of emergency” to expire at the end of February.
In 2021, Newsom announced that K-12 students would be required to receive the vaccine for full-time in-person instruction after the vaccine had received final approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But the implementation of the policy was postponed, ostensibly for logistical reasons. Just one year ago, as Breitbart News reported, K-12 vaccine requirements were still a distinct possibility, as a Democrat in the state legislature offered a bill to make the coronavirus shot one of the state’s required vaccinations for attending school.
However, the policy has been scrapped, thanks to Newsom’s decision to let the state of emergency end. CalMatters reports:
The state has dropped its plan to require the COVID-19 vaccination for K-12 students as the state of emergency comes to an end Feb. 28, after nearly three years.
That said — “we continue to strongly recommend COVID-19 immunization for students and staff to keep everyone safer in the classroom,” the California Department of Public Health said in a statement.
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The policy would have applied to all of California’s 6.7 million public and private students. But enforcing the requirement would have posed a challenge, given the vaccine’s waning immunity.
President Joe Biden informed Congress last week that he will be ending the state of emergency and the public health emergency on the coronavirus pandemic on May 11, closing a chapter after more than three years.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
