CA Requiring Vaccinations For Teachers, First In U.S.

CALIFORNIA — California became the first state in the nation to require vaccination or weekly COVID-19 testing for all teachers and school employees, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday.

Several large school districts have already issued similar mandates this month, but the new policy is one of the toughest approaches yet to ramp up vaccination rates in California as the highly contagious delta variant continues to drive up cases this summer.

The order takes effect Friday. All schools across the Golden State must be in full compliance by Oct. 15. The state assured that strong testing resources would remain available to K-12 campuses.

"If we want to end this pandemic and disease, we could do it in a month," Newsom said at Claremont Middle School in Oakland just hours after the city and San Francisco issued their own vaccine orders for teachers. "This disease is now a choice. The one thing that could end this pandemic once and for all is available in abundance to everybody that wants it. Regardless of your ability to pay, regardless of your immigration status: It's available today."

Children under 12 are still not authorized to receive coronavirus vaccines, a limit that has raised concerns in the state as K-12 students return from summer break.

"Educators want to be in classrooms with their students, and the best way to make sure that happens is for everyone who is medically eligible to be vaccinated, with robust testing and multi-tiered safety measures," E. Toby Boyd, president of the California Teachers Association, said in a statement Wednesday.

A majority of K-12 schools were closed to in-person instruction for months to more than a year as the state endured intermittent surges of coronavirus and a roller coaster of back-and-forth restrictions, all before vaccines were widely available.

"Our children have endured so much over the last year, and they need us to do the right thing and take every single safety precaution necessary to allow for a safe learning environment," U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) said at the news conference Wednesday.

Widespread school closures during the pandemic added fuel to supporters of a recall election that will decide the Democratic governor's fate next month.

"We think this is the right thing to do, and we think this is a sustainable way to keeping our schools open and to address the No. 1 anxiety that parents like myself have for young children," Newsom said. "And that is knowing that the schools are doing everything in their power to keep our kids safe, to keep our kids healthy."

The order comes on the heels of another requirement set by the state last week mandating all health care workers to become inoculated or submit to regular testing. Both orders stop short of requiring vaccination, as the Food and Drug Administration nears its approval process for COVID-19 vaccines.

Newsom did not say Wednesday whether he would update the orders to require inoculation for educators if the vaccines did quickly receive final FDA approval.

"This is the announcement we're making today," he said, adding: "We'll consider that if necessary, but we believe this is a meaningful first step."

Pressed on the question of how quickly the mandate could be updated again, Newsom said, "We're just announcing this seconds ago. So let's give this an opportunity to work."

It was unclear exactly how the new rules will be enforced. Newsom assured that the requirement would carry as much weight as other regulations within school districts.

"Well, it's the same way all the rules and regulations within the school system are enforced," he said.

"And we're not concerned about that," he added. "We think we have enlightened leaders, people that recognize what's at stake, their own health, the health and safety of the children they're serving — that's their mission. That's our mandate. We're confident that we'll see compliance."

Previously, Newsom had issued a mask mandate for indoor classes for all teachers and students but had left the decision of whether to require vaccines up to local districts.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the nation’s second-largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, said Sunday, "The circumstances have changed."

"It weighs really heavily on me that kids under 12 can’t get vaccinated," Weingarten said.

California, along with the rest of the nation, was in the midst of a summertime COVID-19 surge, fueled by the delta variant, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said is as contagious as chickenpox.

The state positivity rate rose above 6 percent this week, with a majority of new cases reported among the unvaccinated.

The new strain accounted for the vast majority of new cases and has affected children more than previous strains of the virus.

There have been 589 cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children reported as of Monday statewide, a rare condition that can damage multiple organ systems. The syndrome can be life-threatening for children.

Last week, State Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) called for all teachers and school staff in Bay Area school districts to be vaccinated before the first day of school or be tested regularly.

In an interview with Patch on Tuesday after holding a news briefing in East Palo Alto, Becker said: "If we lose another year of in-person learning, that's on us as adults."

"It's really incumbent on us to make every effort to put kids first and to really inspire confidence in the schools to make them as safe as possible — really to build a wall of protection and security around them," Becker told Patch.

"The best way to do that is make sure all the adults that they're going to come in contact with in school are vaccinated," he said. "We know that most of them are. Let's get to 100 percent."