by Emma Jee
On Thursday September 9th, Los Angeles became the first major school district to require the COVID-19 vaccine for children 12 and up. With over 460,000 students in the district, many have been affected by the recent mandate. This has set a new precedent for vaccine mandates in schools, and many schools have wondered if they should follow in the footsteps of Los Angeles’ school districts. I believe that our schools should be one of these schools to do so.
As of September 22, there have been 2,969 new cases in the New York area, excluding New York City. According to the CDC, the amount of cases has risen ever since the record low of 55 new cases on June 20, 2021. This makes it ever so more important for teens to get vaccinated, to slow the spread of COVID-19.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more kids have caught COVID-19 this September than any other month. Although children and teens have less of a chance to have fatal symptoms from COVID-19, they can still catch it, infect others, and suffer from long-term damage. Our school has already personally witnessed teens getting sick this school year when the Homecoming game was cancelled due to the opponent team catching COVID-19.
With the rise of more contagious variants like the Delta variant, schools are one of the places most at risk. According to CNN, only 46% of 12-17 year-olds are fully vaccinated. Compared to the 83% fully vaccinated adults over 65 years old, not enough teens have been vaccinated. The most important goal for vaccinations is to make sure that there are enough vaccinations that transmission is at a record low, so that people who cannot get vaccinations for a variety of reasons like age, health issues, and allergies can stay healthy. The ultimate goal is herd immunity, and while we are far away from it, vaccine mandates should help make schools safe enough for everyone to learn and enjoy comfortably. “We need to get 85% of the U.S. population vaccinated—we need all of the adolescents and all of the adults,” said Dr. Hotez, a professor of pediatrics and molecular and virology and microbiology.
When asking other IHS students their thoughts about Irvington mandating the COVID-19 vaccine, sophomore Sherry Chen said, “I would support [a COVID vaccine mandate]. First off, school already makes you get a certain amount of shots or vaccines before you attend the school for safety reasons, so why couldn’t they do that with the COVID vaccine? I can understand why they couldn’t at the start of the year since [the Pfizer vaccine] wasn’t FDA approved yet.”
Overall, I think a school vaccine mandate would benefit the general health of the school and lessen the risk for COVID-19 outbreaks to spread as we move into winter.
