Though experts’ understanding of COVID-19 has grown tremendously, the virus that causes it is an ever-changing story, challenging our ability to form policy that works from one season to the next.
In January, when state Sen. Richard Pan introduced a bill to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for K-12 students, fears about the easily transmissible omicron variant were at a high point. But months later, a vaccine mandate for school-age children seems less urgent — at least for the moment.
California schools are operating safely; children are less likely to develop serious cases of COVID-19; and the vaccine is still being given under emergency use authorization for kids 5 to 15, rather than under final approval, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers more data. And there’s still debate about how effective vaccines are at stopping infections among children. A large, but not yet peer-reviewed, study conducted by the New York State Department of Health found that, in the lower dose given to children ages 5 to 11, protection from infection dropped from 68% to 12% within about a month. Still, CDC data show that the vaccine offers protection for those children against serious illness at a higher rate and for longer.
