CA no longer pursuing COVID vaccine mandate for K-12 schools, public health department says

[SuperCoder]

Source: ABC7 Eyewitness News

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California won't make children get the coronavirus vaccine to attend schools.

The California Department of Public Health said Friday it is not exploring emergency rules to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of required school vaccinations.

That's a reversal from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's 2021 announcement that the state would add the COVID-19 vaccine to its list of mandated vaccinations for kids to attend school. Last year, state officials delayed that requirement until at least the summer of 2023.

Now public health officials say they are no longer moving ahead with the effort as the state prepares to end its coronavirus emergency on Feb. 28.

Read more: https://abc7.com/california-covid-vaccine-mandate-ca-schools-department-of-public-health-coronavirus/12768012/

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Has the world gone topsy-turvy? What the hell is this. This is NOT what I voted for when I voted for Governor Newsom to be back in. Forced vaccinations for ALL should be MANDATORY.

Guess I'm not leaving the house for a long, long, long long time.

[Turbineguy]

1. Anti vaxxers will need a new epidemic now.

[Pluvious]

9. A mutation of the Bird Flu...

… could cause a future die-off of MAGAts

A moment of enlightenment would then occur, for the remaining survivors

They’ll call that period, The Time of the Raven Rapture

God bless their hearts

[RockRaven]

2. This is absolute bullshit. We don't have active polio or measles emergencies either but their

vaccines being required is legitimate, reasonable, GOOD PUBLIC POLICY.

[vanlassie]

3. But they are not forced.

[RockRaven]

4. Depends on how you define forced. They are absolutely required in many circumstances, and

that includes schools.

[vanlassie]

5. Forced implies no choice. You could always refuse

and not go to public school, fly, etc. Public health efforts tend to avoid force and rely on education.

[speak easy]

6. Vaccines offer little protection against infection by todays omicron variants

nor against spreading breakthrough infections. cf Polio and Measles.

SARS-CoV-2 variant biology: immune escape, transmission and fitness

Omicron is characterized by an altered entry phenotype31,32, coupled with significant immune escape31,33,34, enabling efficient infection of vaccinated or previously infected individuals.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00841-7

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron XBB.1.5, CA.3.1, and CH.1.1 exhibit remarkable antibody resistance

XBB subvariants, CA.3.1 and CH.1.1, exhibited almost complete escape from neutralization by triple-vaccinated or BA.4/5 infection sera.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230123/SARS-CoV-2-Omicron-XBB15-CA31-and-CH11-exhibit-remarkable-antibody-resistance.aspx

[JudyM]

14. Is there scientific evidence of that statement? This single study has not been peer reviewed...

Quoting the article you cited:

*Important notice
bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.

Genuinely wondering if you’ve read more about this, because it conflicts with research I’ve seen.

[speak easy]

15. Scientific evidence for which statement?

[JudyM]

16. Your title sentence.

[speak easy]

17. A: There is plenty of evidence that the current U.S. vaccines

both monovalent, and bivalent, impede the progression of a SARS-CoV-2 infection to illness/serious illness/ death. Evidence that the vaccines protect against infection without a double blind study, is assessed by the effectiveness of antibodies to the infection. There is extensive evidence that monovalent vaccines produce antibodies markedly less effective against Omicron

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron is an immune escape variant with an altered cell entry pathway
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-022-01143-7

and progressively effective against new variants, which is why the bivalent vaccine was produced in the first place. Nowithstanding the bivalent booster, "The BQ.1 XBB variants are the most antibody-resistant variants to date" (WHO).

WHO :XBB.1.5 Rapid risk assessment, 11 January 2023
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/11jan2023_xbb15_rapid_risk_assessment.pdf

Consistent with earlier studies, the CDC finds that a four dose vaccination regime reduces the risk of progression to symptomatic illness by 50% over a three month period after a bivalent booster.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7205e1.htm

But the question is not illness, it is infection. Vaccination does not make someone with Omicron less infectious.

Similar viral loads in Omicron infections regardless of vaccination status
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.19.22274005v1

Preprints from a reputable source are not conclusive, but constitute reasonable scientific evidence.

[onecaliberal]

7. There is a massive shortage of teachers, massive shortage of subs. It's not great.

Where i live, it's like there is no COVID. No one masks, and at my place of employment people come to work WITH covid.

[BigmanPigman]

8. As a former CA K-6 teacher

who has permanent health issues due to the mold and the environment in my classrooms I would NOT teach unless there was a mandatory vax. The air quality in classrooms still sucks.

[NullTuples]

10. The world has not gone topsy-turvy; SARS-CoV-2 and greed have won.

We now can count on 95% protection (on average) against severe disease or hospitalization that lasts only 6-12 months (again, on average) regardless as to whether the protection is from infection or vaccine. ( https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00124-y )

For three years, we've all watched the virus adapt. Each time the virus burned through a new geographic area of potential hosts, it mutated. The more infections, the greater the chance of mutations. The more mutations, the greater the chance one or more of them would give the virus the upper hand. This pattern repeated over, and over, and over, and over all across the globe.

We could've immunized the planet against the COVID virus that existed pre-Delta & Omicron. But we chose investor profits instead of humanity. Despite the fact that US taxpayers funded the research for the vaccines, we're still choosing to allow Pfizer & Moderna to make obscene profits from letting people die or live out their lives with disabilities.

So now we're in this awkward middle stage where we can no longer mandate vaccinations because they simply aren't that effective any more, although they do still help to prevent severe cases of COVID for a while - if the person doesn't expose themselves to a massive viral load in their environment by say, spending hours in bars or restaurants or maybe schools (think lunchrooms on a rainy day) unmasked. And the virus is slightly less damaging on average. But it's also far better at spreading now, which results in it being more likely to find the people it can damage the most.

With luck maybe the next round of mutations will render it mostly harmless instead of the opposite.

[MichMan]

11. Not sure how you force someone to get vaccinated unless you are prepared to do it by physical force.

[DBoon]

12. easy

You can't get a job in the public school system without proof of vaccination

Children can't enroll in school without a vaccination.

We did it for smallpox. Now smallpox is no more.

We can't muster the political will to do it with Covid, so children will continue to die of Covid.

We have just admitted that we are OK with deaths because we are afraid of right wing fear mongering.

[MichMan]

13. Easy ?

You covered children and those who work in public school systems.

What about the other 99 % of adults who don't work there ?

Retired, unemployed, disabled or working anywhere else ?

Remember; the OP stated forced vaccinations for ALL. How? Send police to their homes, drag them out, hold them down and jab them? Really ?

[SuperCoder]

18. Or...

Ban them from group activities if they refuse.

Decisions have consequences.

[Ace Rothstein]

19. With the vaccine offering limited protection for transmission this makes sense.

Combined with the already low odds of serious illness for kids it doesn't make sense to mandate these vaccines.