Once COVID-19 vaccines are available to children, Los Angeles students must be immunized before they can return to campus, Supt. Austin Beutner said Monday.
Beutner, however, did not suggest that campuses remain closed until then. Instead, he said, the state should set standards for the reopening of all schools, clearly justify the guidelines and then require campuses to open when standards are met.
The requirement for the COVID-19 vaccine “would be no different than students vaccinated against measles or mumps,” said Beutner in a pre-recorded briefing. He also compared students, staff and others who received a COVID-19 vaccine with those who “tested for tuberculosis before entering campus. This is the best way we know to keep everyone safe on a campus. ”
But the vaccine will not be in the students’ arms for some time. The two vaccines that have received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration so far have been tested almost exclusively on adults. The clinical trial of the injection made by Pfizer and BioNTech included 153 youths aged 16 and 17, and some of the experts who reviewed the data for the FDA said that there were not enough teenagers to determine whether the vaccine is safe for that age group, let alone for younger children.
Children and young adults are also among the last to be vaccinated, as they face a lower risk of a serious case of COVID-19.
Beutner said he expected all students to be vaccinated “by the time of next year”.
Parents who do not want their children to have the vaccine “will always have the option of the child continuing to learn online and therefore not having to go back to campus,” said Beutner.
Also at a public briefing on Monday, LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said vaccines could be available as early as February for teachers and other key professionals who are scheduled to take part in the next phase. immunization.
But a month or more remains, and the pandemic continues to plague the county. Separately, in light of the devastating conditions, Ferrer formally urged all staff at the K-12 school to close their campuses by the end of January.
“The diminishing capacity of our health system to care for the most seriously ill is at a critical moment and we must all do what we can,” wrote Ferrer. “This recommendation for schools aims to support this strategy.”
A relatively small number of campuses – mainly private schools – have been opened with exemption to offer classes to students from kindergarten through transition to second grade. Schools can also offer face-to-face services and instruction for students with special needs in individual and small group settings – with up to 25% of campus enrollments at any given time.
Three public school systems – Las Virgenes Unified, El Segundo Unified and Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified – told The Times on Monday that they would suspend the use of their exemptions and return to online education at Ferrer’s request.
Echoing Ferrer’s appeal, the California Teachers’ Federation on Monday called for a four-week suspension from all face-to-face classes. A spokeswoman for the state’s other largest teacher union, California Teachers Assn, said she would take essentially the same position.
LA Unified released alarming data from its internal testing program last week: Almost 1 in 3 asymptomatic students from some low-income communities who sought a coronavirus test at a district-operated site during the week of December 14 was revealed infected. At the time of the test, the children reported not feeling the effects of COVID-19. Asymptomatic carriers can still spread the virus to others and may develop symptoms later.
Although a vaccine protects teachers, infected children can transmit the virus to each other, even if they show no signs of illness. They could then take the virus home to vulnerable family members. It is also possible that vaccinated teachers – who would be protected – are still able to carry the virus to their families.
Officials hope that the transmission of the virus on campus will be limited by strong security measures, including physical distance, better air filtration and the use of facial covers.
In their effort to reopen closed campuses, California Governor Gavin Newsom and state Education Council President Linda Darling-Hammond recently cited research that suggests strong campus security protocols can be effective in limiting spread of the virus.
In the short term, however, an increasing number of schools are voluntarily delaying reopening plans or closing on-site services.