Listen 4 min

       Share

       Comment on this story Comment

       Add to your saved stories

       Save

       The D.C. Council voted Tuesday to repeal its coronavirus vaccine mandate for the city’s schoolchildren, a measure that was controversial when it passed in 2021 and was never enforced.

       The vote ends a long-running debate over whether D.C. should require students over the age of 12 to get vaccinated against the coronavirus as a condition for attendance. Lawmakers added a coronavirus vaccination to the city’s list of required immunizations in hopes of curbing the virus in schools, but thousands of families failed to meet deadlines.

       Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning. ArrowRight

       The measure also drew sharp criticism from congressional Republicans. Some opponents shared concerns about racial equity — vaccination rates among Black children lagged behind their White peers, which threatened the possibility of barring a disproportionate number of Black kids from school.

       D.C. Health focused on childhood vaccinations as the school year looms

       Members reversed the measure unanimously and without any debate. Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large), who co-introduced the law that mandated the vaccination, noted that no child had been excluded from school this year because the measure was a “requirement that hasn’t been in place” for this school year.

       Advertisement

       Tuesday’s vote followed fears from families and school staff members earlier this school year about rising coronavirus cases. It has been difficult to gauge exactly how many cases have popped up in schools because many districts have stopped maintaining public, centralized covid-19 data dashboards. In D.C. Public Schools, families are notified if health department officials determine an outbreak, which is defined as at least 25 cases inside a school that are tied to a school-based activity.

       But families have been slow to get their children vaccinated, according to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who in a report blamed, in part, misinformation that “has caused many of our students’ families to distrust the COVID-19 vaccine or believe that infection with this virus is trivial.”

       Mendelson also suggested the law is no longer necessary. “What seemed prudent only months after the vaccine became available, and in the midst of the Delta-variant, surge, is no longer considered to be best practice,” he wrote in the report.

       D.C. Council votes to delay students’ coronavirus vaccine requirement

       The vaccination requirement was initially supposed to go into effect at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year. The city was also preparing to impose a long-standing — but rarely enforced — law that requires students to get routine shots against illnesses such as measles, polio and whooping cough.

       Advertisement

       But families were slow to get their children immunized against the coronavirus. The city hosted dozens of pop-up vaccine booths and mobile health clinics. It even enticed students with college scholarships and gift cards.

       Share this article Share

       By September 2022, officials estimated that just 55 percent of eligible children in the city’s traditional public and charter schools had gotten their shots.

       To give children more time to get vaccinated, the deadline was extended to Jan. 3. Students who remained unvaccinated could have legally been kept out of school, making this among the strictest coronavirus policies in the nation; few districts elsewhere were requiring students to get vaccinated.

       School systems in Northern Virginia, as well as in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties in Maryland, do not have mandates.

       Two months before D.C.’s January deadline, council members voted to delay the mandate until the current school year. In the meantime, they said they would review the requirement. “We have to meet people where they are, and many people still aren’t ready to accept this particular treatment,” Henderson said at the time.

       Advertisement

       Sarah Ash Combs, attending physician and director of outreach for the emergency department at Children’s National, and doctors throughout the country continue to strongly recommend the vaccines. Although the pandemic emergency has ended, the coronavirus is still a serious respiratory illness, Combs said. She is in favor of having a mandate in place but said repealing it is “okay, as long as we stay consistent with the messaging about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.”

       As the weather cools and the holiday season approaches, Combs recommended frequent handwashing, avoiding gatherings when feeling sick and — in settings where multiple households are coming together — masking.

       But Becky Reina, who has elementary- and middle-school-age children, said she was “disappointed” with the council’s decision.

       “It’s a level of protection for my kids that they won’t get now,” she said. Her children are both vaccinated, she added. “Covid is still dangerous.”

       Nicole Asbury and Karina Elwood contributed to this report.

       Share

       Comments

       Loading...