Should COVID-19 vaccinations be a requirement for school attendance in Washington? As a state advisory committee considers the rules, one member of the group best articulates the issue.
“I actually think the data with regards to COVID is more than sufficient for me to recommend this for anybody enthusiastically,” said Dr. Ben Wilfond, a pulmonologist at Seattle Children’s, according to The Seattle Times. “But for those who are not ready to be there themselves and the implications of having this as a school requirement, all the things that come with that far outweigh the value of incremental change in (community) vaccination that might happen … if we had this requirement.”
For a variety of reasons, the advisory group is wise to not recommend a COVID vaccine requirement at this time. The committee was formed by the state Board of Health to examine the issue and will present its findings to the board next month.
Vaccine mandates for K-12 students are not new. Washington requires vaccinations for measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, diphtheria, pertussis, polio and several other diseases that once were common and still present a threat to public health.
Debates over vaccine requirements also are not new. In 2019, the Legislature removed personal and philosophical exemptions for the MMR vaccine in order for students to attend school, requiring more people to be vaccinated; religious and medical exemptions are still allowed. That bill was championed by Rep. Paul Harris, R-Vancouver, and Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver.
Personal and philosophical exemptions are still allowed for other vaccinations, in addition to religious and medical exemptions.
Of course, these requirements were codified long before COVID-19 brought intense scrutiny to childhood vaccinations. The coronavirus pandemic and the development of new vaccinations has crystallized an anti-vaccine movement that has been growing for decades in this country.
That movement is fueled by disinformation, with a now-discredited “study” by Andrew Wakefield sitting at Ground Zero. Wakefield presented fraudulent information regarding the measles vaccine in 1998 and has since had his medical license revoked. But the lies he told have spread like a particularly virulent infection.
That brings us back to Wilfond’s comment about potentially requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for children to attend school in Washington. As he notes, the requirement would not greatly increase the number of people in the state who are vaccinated.
The Pfizer vaccine has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for children 5-11; several vaccines are approved for older children. These vaccines have undergone rigorous testing, and parents who desire their children to be vaccinated already have taken that step. The relatively few parents who oppose vaccines would only become further entrenched under the weight of a state mandate.
In a sad commentary on the fraying of today’s social fabric, we acknowledge that the benefits of a mandate would be outweighed by the discord it would sow.
Two years of experience have taught us that children are less susceptible to COVID, particularly the more dangerous variants of the virus. We hope that continues to be the case, and we recommend that parents seek reliable information in determining whether to have their children vaccinated.
But, for now, it is best for the state Board of Health to not make vaccinations a requirement for school attendance.
