Children attending Los Angeles county public schools must receive the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available to them or they will not be able to attend school, district Superintendent Austin Beutner said Monday.
Requiring the vaccine will be "no different than students who are vaccinated for measles or mumps," Beutner said.
He did not advocate for keeping schools closed until children can receive the vaccine, but rather said the state of California should set and explain standards for schools to reopen. Then, schools that meet the standards should be required to open.
🔦 Of the two COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the U.S., only one has been studied in children under 18. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine study included people 16 and older. Moderna vaccine studies only looked at COVID-19 vaccine use in adults.
