CALMATTERS | BY ELIZABETH AGUILERA
MARCH 2, 2022
Gov. Gavin Newsom is easing mask restrictions and declaring that the pandemic is moving into a less critical phase.
Yet an aggressive slate of COVID-19-related bills — to mandate vaccines for children and workers, to allow 12 to 17 year-olds to get the vaccine without parental consent and more — remain in play under the Capitol dome.
The vaccine working group of Democratic legislators behind the proposals say their aim is to increase vaccination rates across all age groups, improve the state vaccine registration database and crack down on misinformation about the virus and the vaccine.
Taken together, the adoption of these bills would make California an outlier among states — and give it the country’s strictest COVID-19 regulations.
Other states are considering various mandates and legislation related to COVID-19, but none appear to have the coordination of this effort, steered by some of the most powerful legislators in Sacramento.
Democratic Sen. Josh Newman of Fullerton, a member of the group, said:
“These bills all attempt to bring cohesion, consistency and clarity to our overall approach and response to the pandemic.”
The bills:
- SB 871 would require all children 0 to 17 to get the COVID-19 vaccine to attend child care or school;
- SB 866 would allow kids 12 to 17 to get the COVID-19 vaccine without parental consent;
- SB 1479 would require schools to continue testing and to create testing plans;
- SB 1018 would require online platforms to be more transparent about how information is pushed out to consumers;
- SB 1464 would force law enforcement officials to enforce public health orders;
- AB 1993 would require all employees, including independent contractors, to show proof of COVID-19 vaccine to work in California;
- AB 1797 would make changes to the California Immunization Record Database;
- AB 2098 would reclassify the sharing of COVID-19 “misinformation” by doctors and surgeons as unprofessional conduct that would result in disciplinary action.
Critics said the bills infringe on the health privacy of children, interfere with how doctors work, impose a burden on businesses and workers, and rely on vaccines that do not in many cases prevent the transmission of COVID-19 …
