Midterm elections may well decide if U.S. public school children will be forced to take a COVID jab.
On Oct. 20, an advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to add COVID-19 vaccines to the recommended immunization schedule for children and adults.
However, states still have the right not to follow the CDC recommendation. As it stands, 21 states already specifically ban any kind of COVID-19 vaccine mandate in schools. But laws can be overturned and with 36 gubernatorial races taking place in the United States, the future of government-imposed COVID mandates for kids hangs in the balance.
In New England, the potential odds could be life-altering for families who oppose COVID vaccines for their children. Out of the six states that make up the region, New Hampshire is the only one with legislation that bans COVID vaccine mandates for students.
Gov. Chris Sununu, who signed the ban last year, dispelled any possibility that New Hampshire would follow the CDC recommendation to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for children in public schools, pointing out that the state’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) needs approval from lawmakers to mandate any vaccines.
“NH DHHS has no intention of moving forward with the CDC’s recommendation, and I have been clear and consistent in opposing government-led COVID vaccine mandates,” Sununu said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
While his Democratic challenger, Tom Sherman, has been transparent about his wishes to mandate the shot for Granite State kids, Sununu has a substantial lead in polling as he seeks his fourth term as governor.
In Maine, former Republican Gov. Paul LePage is seeking to unseat Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, who has imposed some of the nation’s strictest COVID mandates. Maine also is one of a handful of states that provide no other exemption—except for medical—to school vaccines, likely meaning that children there will be required to take the COVID jab based on the CDC decision if Mills is reelected.
Currently, she leads LePage in polling by as much as 10 percent.
Last week, LePage pledged at the behest of Health Choice Maine not to enforce the COVID-19 add-on to the CDC’s schedule of school immunizations.
“I have always believed that Maine parents need to make the best medical decisions for their own children, without interference from the government,” he wrote in his pledge. He also criticized Mills’s CDC director for supporting “massive government overreach” with all vaccines.
Massachusetts faces a similar possibility if ultra-liberal Attorney General Maura Healey defeats conservative Geoff Diehl in the race for governor. Healey is unmistakably pro-vaccine, having mandated her entire staff to get the shot; in a recent debate with Diehl, she suggested she'd support another pandemic lockdown and masking mandates.
Diehl, who has vowed to restore the job of every state worker who was fired for not taking the vaccine, was quick to condemn the CDC vote, even releasing a YouTube video on it.
“A student’s ability to enter school should never be tied to this vaccine,” Diehl says in the video, during which he also vows to never adopt a vaccine he described as “just out of the clinical phase.”
Healey, however, leads Diehl by 23 points, according to one poll.
Vermont will likely see the COVID-19 vaccine added to the list of mandatory school shots, regardless of the outcome of its gubernatorial race. Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, has enforced CDC vaccine guidelines and was a staunch promoter of the COVID vaccine, while his Democratic challenger, Brenda Siegel, has campaigned on the platform that Scott wasn’t strict enough with COVID vaccine requirements.
In New England’s most southern states, Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, both Democrats, are also pro-COVID vaccine.
McKee is being challenged by pro-parental rights Republican Ashley Kalus, but she has trailed McKee in polling.
Following the CDC advisory panel vote, Lamont’s Republican challenger, Bob Stefanowski, pledged that he wouldn’t require a COVID vaccine for schools in Connecticut. Stefanowski, who also trails in polling, called on Lamont to take a similar pledge but quickly predicted that the governor wouldn’t.
“I would say our governor has tended to follow CDC guidance,” Stefanowski said. “They’re going to recommend it for the states. I’m saying we’ll go against that recommendation if it is, in fact, to mandate it.”
Lamont responded by saying he sees no reason to mandate the COVID vaccine for public school kids, but didn’t pledge to not require them if reelected.
As with Maine, Connecticut also removed all exemptions—except a medical one signed by a doctor—from the CDC’s current recommended schedule of school vaccinations. The other four New England states do allow religious exemptions from mandated immunizations.
Nationally, 44 states have religious exemptions from school-mandated vaccinations.
California and the District of Columbia have already made the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory for public school students, although the D.C. council is slated to vote on Nov. 1 on a proposal to defer the legislation.
