COVID-19-related legislation, such as legislation mandating vaccines for children and workers, allowing vaccinations for children aged 12 to 17 without a parental agreement, and other similar measures, are still under consideration in Washington, D.C.
Democratic legislators sponsoring the plans say their goal is to increase vaccination rates for all ages, strengthen the state’s vaccine registration database, and combat misinformation about the virus and vaccine.
If all three laws are passed, California will be the only state with the harshest COVID-19 regulations in the country. No other state appears to have the coordination of this campaign, which is being guided by some of Sacramento’s most influential legislators, as this one is.
“These proposals all try to offer continuity, consistency, and clarity to our entire approach and response to the epidemic,” said Democratic Sen. Josh Newman of Fullerton, a member of the group.
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In order to attend child care or school, children ages 0 to 17 would have to receive the COVID-19 vaccine; children ages 12 to 17 would be allowed to receive the vaccine without parental consent; children ages 12 to 17 would have to continue testing; and children ages 18 and older would have the option of receiving the vaccine without parental consent.
With the passage of AB 1993, the state of California will require proof of vaccination against the COVID-19 virus for all employees, including independent contractors. AB 1797 will amend the California Immunization Record Database.
And AB 2098 will reclassify doctors’ and surgeons’ dissemination of COVID-19 “misinformation” as unprofessional conduct, subject to disciplinary action.
Critics claim that the bills violate children’s health privacy, interfere with doctors’ work, burden businesses and workers, and rely on vaccines that fail to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in many cases. They also claim that the proposals violate the First Amendment.
Since 2015, the nonprofit A Voice for Choice has been fighting to maintain personal belief exemptions for needed immunizations. Christina Hildebrand, the group’s head of policy, says that these rules don’t discriminate based on who you are or whether or not you have children in California.
Mandates and COVID requirements are still in place, despite the rest of the world’s efforts to eliminate them. The governor is talking about his “smarter approach” and the fact that we are entering the “endemic phase.”
On September 14, California Governor Jerry Newsom announced that his state would begin treating COVID-19 as an endemic disease—in other words, it would be treated more like flu. Schools will no longer be required to wear masks under a state mandate, but masks will still be necessary on public transportation and in health care settings, Newsom said on Monday.
According to Mark Ghaly, the state’s chief public health officer, new varieties and surges of COVID-19 could emerge as the state moves away from masking. Newsom’s “SMARTER” strategy, he added “has been a key part of the success in California” because of its support for vaccines.
With these proposals, the legislators behind them appear to be outpacing Newsom on COVID-19-related concerns. The pending legislation was not addressed by the administration of Newsom. Despite the fact that Californians are suffering from pandemic fatigue, Governor Jerry Brown is determined to open the state up to the outside world.
Even while it appears that legislators and Governor Gavin Newsom are at odds, GOP political consultant Mike Madrid says that they’re really just focusing on the same thing: finding a solution to the state’s crisis.
The politicians, he claimed, are “legitimately trying to find a solution to the crisis,” he said. How much ahead of schedule are they? Yes. They seem to be on a different path. Yes. Yes, they are trying to come up with an answer. Yes.”
Madrid explained that this was all a part of the political procedure. A lack of information made it easier for Newsom to establish the legislative agenda early on in the outbreak. With two years of data and vaccination at their disposal, the Legislature now has additional authority.
According to Kristina Bas Hamilton, a political strategist at KBH Advocacy, the legislature is expected to respond immediately with legislation and it is their role to press the problems.
According to political expert Kristina Bas Hamilton of KBH Advocacy, “the Legislature is an equal arm of government that puts forward their ideas and assumes they get the votes to pass they are saying ‘governor, we want you to go deeper and then debates begin.” This is the state government’s waltz.
The state’s vaccine legislation is significantly more comprehensive than anything else in the country.
A vaccination licensed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is being considered in New Hampshire, while the COVID-19 vaccine is being considered in New York as a requirement for school attendance.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, legislators in Alabama are reviewing a bill that would allow employers to be sued for harm or death caused by the vaccine if it is required for workers.
Legislators in California’s Democratic-majority statehouse are expected to pursue harsher COVID legislation.
Bas Hamilton stated, “California’s place in the nation is something we take very seriously.” As a result, some policies are able to go further in this state than in others.” Because of the state’s size, the rest of the country is compelled to follow suit.”
Some of the bills are being carried by Sacramento Democrat Sen. Richard Pan, who chairs the Senate Health Committee and is a co-sponsor of the legislation.
It’s not the first time that Dr. Pan has found himself in the national spotlight for his efforts to pass contentious vaccine-related legislation via the legislative process. The rules for doctors giving vaccine medical exemptions were also tightened by him.
“The infection is not going away,” added Pan. As a result, “it’s not just about short-term fixes, but long-term measures are needed to keep this infection at bay.”
San Francisco’s Democratic senators Pan, Newman, and Wiener; Assemblymembers Akilah Weber, Buffy Wicks, Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, and Evan Low make up the legislative working group. A pro-vaccine advocacy group founded by Crystal Strait, a former staffer of Pan, is sponsoring all of the legislation.
Some of the most divisive vaccination legislation
According to advocates and opponents of the bills, the two measures that would require vaccinations in schools and companies are expected to generate the most debate.
There are “civil rights violations” in each of these laws, according to the chief counsel for the Physicians for Informed Consent (PIC), an anti-vaccine organization based in Newport Beach, California. According to him, “California has alienated families and this will cause a significant number of people to leave.”
Police had to remove protestors from the Capitol and Pan received death threats because of vaccine-related legislation in prior years.
“This is a virus that our kids are incredibly resistant to,” said McKeeman, of Let Them Breathe, the San Diego-based parent alliance that opposes masks and vaccine mandates. The group was able to successfully sue the San Diego Unified School District in order to overturn its vaccination policy.
It’s a conversation that should never have taken place in the first place. This law should not have been introduced in the absence of long-term studies and FDA approval for the majority of children’s ages.”
Children who have been immunized against COVID-19 still contract the virus, although Pan cites incidents in which immunized children were seriously ill, were hospitalized, or even died as justification for the requirement. COVID-19 has claimed the lives of 55 youngsters in California so far, according to official data.
While we wait for the final schedule, “it’s not acceptable for children to become crippled and die,” Pan added. Because we’re not sure of everything, we nonetheless try to stop it. ”
In light of the pandemic’s rapid evolution, Hildebrand, a spokesperson for Voice for Choice, suggests that such a mandate should be postponed.
On the contrary, Hildebrand says, “It is premature and arbitrary. “It’s an overreach to include vaccines for children in daycare through 12th grade. There need to be more clinical trials and long-term investigations to see if the vaccination is beneficial in preventing the spread of the disease. In this case, parents and their doctors should decide. ”
Study results released this week suggest that the Pfizer vaccination for children ages 5 to 11 is much less efficient in preventing the disease than the vaccine given to adolescents. It does, however, offer some protection against life-threatening illnesses.
While waiting for further information on how a three-dose schedule affects babies and toddlers under 5, the FDA has postponed authorizing the vaccine for those age groups.
Business organizations, such as the California chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, are strongly opposed to mandating vaccines for employees’ protection from disease. The group successfully argued against the Supreme Court’s decision to throw out the federal workplace mandate.
It’s an “absurdly useless policy” at a time when the government has announced he’s ready to ease limitations and recognize that the epidemic is becoming endemic, according to the state director of the chapter.
To further tax not only small company owners but all Californians and localities, he asked, “Why in the world would we want to pursue this kind of policy?” Overreacting and burdening small company owners already struggling to keep their doors open and their employees employed, this regulation is a bad idea.
All workers should be required to be vaccinated, Wicks said, and he referenced corporations like United Airlines, which have successfully adopted vaccination requirements.
Other charges
As a result of Wiener’s initiative to allow 12 to 17-year-olds to get vaccinated without a parental agreement, a lot of people are concerned.
At 12, a 12-year-old girl can have an abortion, the HPV vaccine, the Hepatitis B vaccine, mental health care, and domestic violence assistance, he said. To put it another way, “We have complete faith in them, and we should have complete faith in them as well with the COVID-19 vaccination.”
The bill’s critics argue that it interferes with parental control.
Many decisions must be made as children grow up, especially during this time when there is so much pressure to get vaccinated, according to McKeeman. Since they can’t drive, drink, or join the military until they’re of legal drinking and driving age. As a result of the maturity that comes with making irreversible judgments.
Concerns concerning children’s health privacy have been raised by the proposed amendments to the state’s immunization register.
When asked why schools were being given access to information that didn’t pertain to them, Hildebrand responded, “I don’t understand.” All of this data being made public is “concerning.”
School officials will be able to determine what other vaccinations their pupils had, which would be helpful in the event that they decide to require more than the state presently mandates, as outlined by bill sponsor Weber. In order to better focus on public health campaigns, she suggested, officials should include race and ethnicity in the database.
Bills aimed at combating social media misinformation and making law enforcement adhere to public health orders have so far received no opposition.