In the wake of the spectacular failure of her mask mandate, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says she’s now looking to follow in the footsteps of California by forcing kids to be vaccinated to attend school by the next year.
“I believe this is important,” Gov. Hochul told Katy Tur of MSNBC. “And we’ll get it done.”
After many counties refused to enforce her mask mandate once she’d laid the responsibility of enforcing it on them, she’s counting on the legislature to pass the vaccine mandate.
“They do meet in January so our requirement for a vaccine would be in place for next school year,” she said. “It’s absolutely something we’re looking at very seriously.”
Related: New York Won’t Force Counties to Comply With Mask Mandate
A vaccine mandate in New York is bound to be met with significant resistance by parents who have weighed the risks vs. benefits and don’t want to vaccinate their kids.
Kids under 18 are largely unaffected by COVID-19, and evidence suggests that kids are not the superspreaders they were once feared to be. In fact, a CDC study showed no difference in infection rates between schools with and without mask mandates. School-age children also have a COVID recovery rate of 99.997%—better than their mortality risk from the seasonal flu. Yet, flu shots are not required for attendance in schools.
A recent study from the U.K. found that unvaccinated children are safer from COVID than even vaccinated adults of any age.
“According to that data, an unvaccinated 10-year-old, who may look like the very picture of COVID vulnerability heading into the school year, faces a lower mortality risk than a vaccinated 25-year-old, whom we might today regard as close to safe as can be,” noted David Wallace-Wells of New York Magazine in September.
Any statewide vaccine mandate will likely generate numerous legal challenges, just as Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for private businesses has — and it’s generally not gone well for Biden. Despite a recent victory in the court because of an Obama-appointed judge, Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate has overwhelmingly been rejected by the courts.
It remains to be seen whether a school vaccine mandate will pass the New York state legislature, though given it’s overwhelmingly Democrat, it likely will. However, in the wake of the Va gubernatorial election, it is conceivable that some Democrats might not be so willing to put parents in a position where they will have to choose an unnecessary vaccination for their children or remote learning. As the elections in Virginia showed, parents don’t like having oversight of their children’s education taken from them. A school vaccine mandate would put parents in the position of having to choose between keeping their kids home or waiving their right to weigh the risks and benefits of vaccinating their kids against COVID.
Even in New York state, that might be risky. According to a Quinnipiac poll released in October, nationwide, nearly 7 out of 10 parents oppose vaccine mandates for students. In New Jersey, parents are already mobilizing against a possible vaccine mandate. Legal challenges to vaccine mandates in California are also underway.
