California Governor Gavin Newsom will announce on Wednesday that teachers and other school personnel must be vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo regular diagnostic tests.
California will thus become the first state in the country to require this requirement, which will take effect in mid-October, according to sources familiar with the measure to CNN.
Los Angeles Unified School District students returned to class in August 2020 wearing masks.Jae C. Hong / AP / AP
This order will be similar to another mandate recently adopted by the state government, which requires all health workers to be vaccinated.
In addition, Newsom has already imposed an obligation to be vaccinated or tested for the virus for all state employees as of September 30.
The San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, and Long Beach school districts have already implemented this requirement.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest in the state, is requesting weekly testing for COVID-19, but has fallen short of requiring educators to get vaccinated.
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"We are getting all of our children back to classroom education safely. We want to do it in a safe way where these children can get all the support" they need, Newsom said Friday at an event on health resources. mental.
Most districts and unions have supported the health order, according to various sources.
"Those who are not vaccinated have to get vaccinated. So we can support our children, without any stress or anxiety, throughout the school year," Newsom said Friday.
Elementary students wear the mask at a school in Chula Vista, California, on July 21, 2021.AP
In California there are more than a thousand school districts, which have more than 300,000 teachers and about 6.1 million students.
The spread of the delta variant led to an increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in California at the beginning of the summer, coinciding with the reopening of the state's economy on a large scale.
That led Los Angeles County authorities to reimpose the mandatory use of a mask in enclosed spaces, regardless of the vaccination status of citizens.
With information from Politico and CNN
