Covid-19: the vaccine will become mandatory for all students in California – archyde

To stem the epidemic caused by the coronavirus, which has claimed more than 700,000 lives in the United States according to the Johns Hopkins University count – the equivalent of the population of the capital Washington – measures are being taken to accelerate the vaccination.

The Governor of California announced on Friday 1^er October, that all students in the state eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine must be vaccinated if they wish to physically attend classes, whether they are schooled in the public or private system. This decision is unprecedented in the United States on such a scale and will ultimately affect more than six million students in California, the most populous state in the country.

• Vaccine becomes mandatory for all students in California

The vaccination requirement for eligible California students, which will affect both the public and private system, will not be immediate, however. It won’t come into effect until next year, depending on the age groups for which the US drug agency, the FDA, has fully validated the vaccine.

Authorization is full and complete for individuals over 16 years of age, but vaccine is at this stage only authorized for children aged 12 to 15 under a pandemic emergency procedure . Younger children do not yet have access.

“We will start to implement this request for the next semester, ie at 1^er January or 1^er July “, California Governor Gavin Newsom said in the announcement, made from a San Francisco school.

“It’s just one more vaccine”, insisted the governor, specifying that in California, 84% of eligible inhabitants have already received at least one dose. As with other vaccine obligations, exemptions will be possible for medical or religious reasons, and it will be up to schools and school districts to enforce this measure. Without the vaccine, it will not be possible to physically attend a school. Unvaccinated students will have the opportunity to take courses via the Internet, enroll in specific programs set up by certain districts or be home schooled.

This vaccination obligation will also apply to all teachers and staff as soon as it comes into effect for students, provides the California directive. These employees are already required to be vaccinated or to undergo a weekly screening test, but the directive will remove the latter option.

The Los Angeles school district, the second largest in the United States, had already announced a similar measure in early September. It leaves its 220,000 eligible students until the end of the year to be fully immunized.

Wearing a mask and being vaccinated have become political issues that divide many Americans. Some Republican governors, such as those of Texas or Florida, even wanted to introduce bans on compulsory mask wearing in their states, invoking the protection of sacrosanct individual freedoms.

“Schools are actually more frequently closed in states that have not rigorously followed a scientific and evidence-based approach to contain the disease.”, Gavin Newsom said.

• United States sends vaccines to Bangladesh, Philippines

The United States, which wants to take the lead in the response to Covid-19 in the world, will send more than 8 million doses to Bangladesh and the Philippines, a White House official told Agence France- Press (AFP).

Five shipments representing a total of 5,575,050 doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine are due to arrive in the Philippines next week, and 2,508,480 doses in Bangladesh, according to this source, who did not wish to be identified. Donations go through the international Covax mechanism, she said.

This is not the first time the United States has shipped to Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, to which it has already given millions of doses. According to an AFP database, only 10% of the population there is currently fully vaccinated.

In the Philippines, a quarter of the adult population has been vaccinated, and experts say it will take a decade for the country’s economy to recover.