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Comment by BrandonM | Hacker News Reader

> There's already a long list of required vaccinations for school... is this one any different?

To me, the answer is a clear Yes. Every vaccine on that list, to my knowledge, results in a much more complete immunity profile than the COVID-19 vaccine. The diseases on that list also impact children in rather devastating ways.

COVID-19 vaccines seem to be more similar to the seasonal flu/cold vaccines than to any of the vaccines on that list. Respiratory diseases circulate around schools every year, and we haven't mandated vaccines for those.

Do we have scientific models showing clear benefits for mandated COVID-19 vaccines for school-age children?

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Do we leave vulnerable teachers out of this equation? (Yes, many teachers are vaccinated, but still can be vulnerable, and some might be unable to take the vaccine.)

I have a relative (not a teacher) who can no longer have vaccines due to Guillain-Barré and another friend's relative currently intubated in the hospital with a single J&J shot (no booster unfortunately.)

Kids while not very vulnerable seem to be a carrier into the home.

For vulnerable teachers, we need better mitigations than mandated vaccines for their students. Vaccinated individuals can still catch and spread COVID. Even if the rate is lower, we might be talking about a teacher who is in close proximity (same classroom) to 200+ students every day, and more students than that in the building.

I don't believe mandated student vaccines is enough for these people (or for the parents of vulnerable students). Instead, we have to do the hard work of allowing appropriate accommodations for high risk individuals. Unfortunately, vaccine or not, much of the responsibility for derisking will inevitably fall to vulnerable individuals themselves, ideally with as much societal support and backing as possible (e.g., plexiglass enclosures for vulnerable employees? I'm not the expert here).

Nothing else we've done so far seems to move the needle much. The stakes aren't personally high enough for everyone else in society to maintain the necessary vigilance for years on end.

Seasonal colds don't result in potentially months of "long-cold" symptoms, nor do they significantly increase the risk of diabetes, nor do they regularly hospitalize and kill people on a large scale.

I am operating from an assumption that COVID-19 is bad and kills people. Unlike the other mandated vaccines, though, vaccinated individuals still catch and spread COVID at high rates. But the reactions to me very much sound like, "We must do something, and this is something."

I'm only asking for models here. Is the CA legislation based on scientific models showing that mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for all school-aged children will meaningfully impact health outcomes at the society level? Or is it motivated by a desire to overcome COVID by all means necessary, even ineffective ones?

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