ByStephanie Innes | Arizona Republic
State health officials are not mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for schoolchildren, but a bill gaining momentum in the Arizona Legislature would prevent them from ever trying.
If passed, the bill would prohibit the Arizona Department of Health Services from starting a process to include the COVID-19 vaccine on the state’s list of immunizations required for K-12 schoolchildren. The state health department to date has not publicly signaled any intent to take that step.
The Arizona bill, sponsored by state Rep. Joanne Osborne, R-Goodyear, who is chair of the Legislature’s House Health and Human Services Committee, has already made it through the full House of Representatives, passing with a 31-28 vote.
Osborne says the decision of whether or not to get a COVID-19 vaccine should be up to parents.
Osborne’s bill got another boost Wednesday when a Senate panel voted 5-3 to endorse it over the objection of the Arizona Public Health Association, which signed on in opposition to the bill along with the Arizona Academy of Family Physicians, the Arizona Education Association and the Arizona chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
‘We should trust the process’
While California and Louisiana plan on mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for children attending K-12 schools, the vaccine is optional for schoolkids in a vast majority of states.
