As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) adds COVID-19 vaccines to its routine immunization schedule for children and adults, at least 20 states have passed legislation or issued rules barring vaccine mandates to attend school.
The National Academy for State Health Policy, in an update this week, shows there are about two-dozen states that have barred COVID-19 vaccines from being included in mandates for schools and students. They include Florida, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, Iowa, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Arizona, and Utah, the website says.
To date, not a single state has passed legislation or implemented an order to mandate COVID-19 vaccines to attend class, according to the Academy, which updated its map of states on Feb. 6. But Washington, D.C, has a student COVID-19 vaccine mandate, although it was delayed until the start of the 2023–2024 school year after the D.C. City Council voted last November to do so….