California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday his decision to require a COVID vaccine for all eligible school children in the Golden State.
“We are all exhausted by this pandemic,” Newsom said. “We are exhausted by the seasonality of it. We are exhausted by the variants and mutations.”
“There’s still a struggle to get to where we need to be,” the governor spoke of the pandemic. “And that means we need to do more, and we need to do better.”
The first group affected by the mandate will be older teens, followed by those above the age of 12, then younger people when the FDA fully authorizes the drug for use in children.
“We hope this encourages folks to get vaccinated,” Newsom said. “We have no trepidation, no hesitancy in encouraging local districts to move forward more expeditiously. ... we expect, on the basis of other similar requirements, that you’ll start to see an uptick in people getting vaccinated well before those dates that are established.”
The rules apply to both public and private institutions.
