It is a well-known principle that schools can mandate vaccines for children. Robert Blendon, an expert in health policy analysis at Harvard T.H., says the question is whether Covid is any different. The poll was created by the Chan School of Public Health. Because decisions are made geographically, Republican states and counties will be reluctant to add Covid-19 as an option to the existing children's education.
These findings are coming as Covid-19 cases in children are on the rise and local leaders debate whether to require shots for students. California announced this month that Covid-19 vaccines would be added to its list of required immunizations for school attendance. Some local districts and Hawaii have also started mandating shots for students, athletes and band members. Many Republican legislators have taken the initiative to prohibit Covid-19 vaccines being mandated for schoolchildren. Some GOP lawmakers in Congress asked Miguel Cardona, Education Secretary, to protect state authority to prohibit vaccine mandates in K-12 schools or colleges.
Since the 1980s, all 50 states have required students to be vaccinated for measles and mumps. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, forty-four states and District of Columbia allow exemptions for religious reasons, while 15 allow exemptions from vaccines for children whose parents object for moral or other reasons.
Covid-19 vaccines for children younger than 12 years have not been approved. Pfizer and BioNTech requested the FDA to approve their vaccine for children aged 5-11 years on Thursday. The agency's advisors will vote on October 26 whether they recommend the shot for children in this age group. The FDA will make a final decision soon.
POLITICO/Harvard poll results showed that 54% of respondents supported the requirement for public school students aged 12 and above to be immunized against Covid, up from 50% in June. The responses from households with children aged 12-17 were evenly divided with 49 percent supporting and 51 percent against.
The support for vaccine mandates was also higher among communities of color than among whites, with 63 percent among Blacks, 59 percent among Hispanics, and 51 percent among whites.
Blendon stated that this was very important for cities if they can get a lot of cooperation from minorities parents.
Despite the media attention paid to anti-vaccine protests in the media, only one of 12 respondents reported being politically active on mandates. This could be either through attending a demonstration or going to school or calling other officials. The issue was almost equally divided among those who were active.
Survey of 1,008 randomly chosen adults was done between Sept. 28th and Oct. 3.
