CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Opinion: Newsom must end 'personal beliefs' exemption for students for COVID-19 shots, not dither

San Diego Union-Tribune - 10/7/2021

The editorial board operates independently from the U-T newsroom but holds itself to similar ethical standards. We base our editorials and endorsements on reporting, interviews and rigorous debate, and strive for accuracy, fairness and civility in our section. Disagree? Let us know.

In 2015, in reaction to a measles outbreak linked to a single visitor to Disneyland, the state Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown banned "personal belief" vaccine exemptions for students. This recognized the obvious: Schools would never be safe if large numbers of parents who bought into anti-vaccination conspiracy theories could readily keep their kids from getting the shots needed to create herd immunity to infectious diseases.

Against this backdrop, it's hard to understand Gov. Gavin Newsom's decision to require public and private school students to get vaccinated in phases after full U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of the COVID-19 vaccine — but allow parents to refuse COVID-19 vaccines for their kids based on "personal beliefs" instead of solely on medical grounds. As the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday, the 2015 law only applied to the 10 vaccinations required to go to school. Newsom should have announced the new requirement in tandem with a push to quickly enact a new state law adding COVID-19 shots to this list. Instead, he has declined to support this obvious step, creating confusion.

What's wrong with this picture? There are entire years where not a single American dies from measles. In the 20 months since the pandemic began in the U.S., there have been more than 700,000 deaths. It is inconceivable that California has a much stronger requirement for measles shots than for COVID-19 shots. Given how much heat Newsom faced for his shut-down orders and mask edicts, it is odd to see him now pull back from an obvious move to protect public health — especially given that his easy win in last month's failed recall election amounted to voters endorsing his pandemic approach. The Legislature should close this loophole.

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.

©2021 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.