Mandate Vaccine Or Tests For Teachers, Says Peninsula State Sen.

SAN MATEO COUNTY, CA — State Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) is calling 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. We know that most of them are. Let's get to 100 percent.”

Last week, the San Jose Unified School District was likely the first school district in the Bay Area to introduce a vaccine or regular testing mandate for staff.

Becker added that the school officials he’s spoken with are generally supportive of a vaccine mandate but have largely been focused on making sure that schools are able to reopen.

As of Monday, San Mateo County has hit its goal of vaccinating 90 percent of people countywide, as 89.6 percent of residents 12 and older have received at least the first dose of the vaccine.

But there are still pockets of the population — such as specific communities, racial/ethnic groups and age groups — where less than 80 percent have been vaccinated.

Geographically, the communities of Broadmoor, East Palo Alto, North Fair Oaks, El Granada, Loma Mar and Moss Beach have vaccination rates that range from 51 percent to 76 percent.

In terms of race and ethnicity, vaccination rates lag below 80 percent among African American, Hispanic, multi-racial and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander groups.

And in terms of age, the youngest and oldest population groups have had the lowest vaccination rates, with 68 percent of 12-to-15 year-olds vaccinated and 64 percent of residents 85 and older vaccinated.

Dr. Anand Chabra, San Mateo County Health COVID-19 mass vaccination section chief, said that "each day brings relatively small increases" in the number of vaccinated residents but it was important that no communities are left behind.

About 74,000 county residents eligible for vaccination remain unvaccinated, Chabra said.

Related: CA To Require Vaccines Or Testing For Health Care, State Workers

Dr. Jeremiah Davis, Associate Medical Director of Pediatrics for the Ravenswood Family Health Network in East Palo Alto, where Becker held his news conference today, said that children should have the opportunity to return to school in an environment that is as safe for them as possible. Children under the age of 12 are not yet eligible for the vaccine.

“Those that can be vaccinated should, and those that can’t yet should be protected by the adults around them who can receive the vaccine,” Davis said at the news briefing.

Becker told Patch that while the county has made strides in ramping up vaccinations in communities like East Palo Alto, much of the remaining unvaccinated population has been susceptible to false messaging and misinformation.

“I was really making a personal appeal to those who are unvaccinated in the interest of themselves and all of us to go out and get vaccinated,” Becker said. “The more people see this as the writing on the wall, then they might as well do it. Over a billion people have been vaccinated (worldwide). This is not novel technology. This is not high risk stuff that we’re talking about.”

Astrid Casimire of the Bay City News Foundation contributed to this report.