Schools should make Covid 19 vaccines mandatory as long as the vaccines are accessible to everyone. However, there are complications including access to the vaccine, and personal comfort.
Getting the vaccine is extremely important because, if enough people get it, we can get community immunity. Community immunity, or herd immunity, is a topic that is commonly discussed right now. Community Immunity is the concept that if almost everybody is vaccinated, it will be safer for everyone. In order to keep the community safe, Massachusetts has made various vaccines, including Dtap/Tdap, polio, MMR, Hepatitis B, and Varicella vaccines mandatory in public schools. There are, however, some exceptions. There are exceptions for medical reasons that need to come from doctors. The only other reason is for religious purposes; if a person’s beliefs are opposed to vaccines, a parent can write a letter to the school, and discuss ways that the child can attend school. As of 2019, 0.4% of kindergarteners entered schools in Middlesex County without vaccines. Community immunity makes it possible for a few people to go to school safely without vaccinations.
How do vaccines work? Vaccines help teach your body how to defend itself against a specific disease. They do this by activating the body. Vaccines train the immune system to put out antibodies (defense systems, which fight harmful bacteria/viruses). That way the body is prepared in case the disease actually goes inside it.
If most people have the vaccine, Covid 19 won’t be able to jump from person to person easily. This will significantly slow the spread. Even if Covid 19 does infect someone who isn’t vaccinated, community immunity will prevent an outbreak. Since the disease has nowhere to spread to, it will eventually become a rare disease.
There are other reasons that making Covid vaccinations mandatory might be hard. At the moment, vaccinations are hard to come by, so the state has to pick and choose who to give a vaccine to. Unfortunately, children are probably going to be some of the last people to get the vaccine, we could be waiting months! If no one can access a vaccine, then it will be impossible to make them mandatory.
As soon as vaccines are made available to everyone, schools should make them mandatory. Every person can help towards community immunity by getting vaccinated.