North Carolina’s Commission for Public Health will consider petition to make COVID-19 vaccination required for 17-year-olds or high school seniors

GUILFORD COUNTY, NC (WGHP) — The North Carolina Commission on Public Health on Wednesday will consider a petition to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for students who are at least 17 years old or entering their senior years of high school.

But three of the state’s top health officials, Dr. Elizabeth C. Tilson, the state’s health director, Dr. Kelly Kimple of the NC Department of Health & Human Service’s Women’s and Children’s Health Section and Mark T. Benton, assistant secretary for public health at NC DHSS, said they think such a change in rules would be “premature.”

Their position is outlined in a memo to Dr. Ronald B. May, the commission’s chair. The commission will meet virtually 9 am, and the item will be considered as “a petition for rulemaking,” to be introduced by Kimple, based on the agenda.

“Specifically, the petition seeks the addition of a COVID-19 vaccine to the state immunization requirements for individuals 17 years of age or entering 12th grade,” their memo said. “This memorandum contains our recommendation to the Commission on that rulemaking petition.

“With information about vaccine doses and booster scheduling still evolving, we believe it is premature for the Commission to codify the immunization schedule through rulemaking. The Commission could consider adding a COVID-19 vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule at a later date.”

The petition was submitted on Oct. 1 by four members of the faculty at Appalachian State University – Stella Anderson of the Department of Management, Nancy Love of Government and Justice Studies, Martha McCaughey of Sociology and Emily Dakin of Social work – and is signed by 255 college students, most of them from Appalachian State.

In supporting this requirement, the petition cites, in brief, the emergence of “safe, effective, and available COVID-19 vaccines;” the need for the UNC System to take participation in vaccination beyond voluntary; the recommendation in April of the American College Health Association that all higher education institutions should mandate vaccination; and that the request “is supported by overwhelming evidence, precedence, law, and the authority of the Commission itself.”

Teen vaccination rates low

If the commission were to adopt this rules change, parents and guardians of children 17 or those entering their last year of high school would have to show immunization for COVID-19 in the same manner that students entering preschools are required to show proof of their shots for measles, chicken pox, mumps and polio, as has been the case for generations.

The Commission for Public Health consists of 13 membersBy statute this group determines most public health policy in the state. Tilson serves in advisory, four of whom are elected by the North Carolina Medical Society and nine of whom are appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper, who also named its chair and vice chair. and reporting capacity.

In NCDHHS records show that 47% of state residents between the age of 12 and 17 have been fully vaccinated by at least one shot of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Among 18-24-year-olds, that rate grows to 54%.

North Carolina has recorded nearly than 2.422 million cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and about 99,630 of them are between the ages of 15 and 17. Another 145,545 are between the ages of 10 and 14.

School districts on issue

How well such a mandate might be received is, of course, controversial. For instance, not every school district requires students to wear masks, much less to be vaccinated.

“Rockingham County Schools is familiar with this petition, but the Board of Education has taken no action,” RCS spokesperson Adam Powell wrote in a response to an email from WGHP. a vaccine mandate would be received favorably by a majority… of the Rockingham County Schools Board of Education.

The Rockingham County School Board does not require masks for students, although, Powell said, masks “are strongly encouraged, but not required.

“The Board has taken no action whatsoever on vaccines thus far. We do not have vaccine clinics on RCS school or facility sites, No elected officials, be it the Board of Education or County Commissioners, have made the official position in this county that vaccines should be required to my knowledge. ”

Janson Silvers, spokesperson for Guilford County Schools, said GCS officials “don’t comment on hypotheticals.”

Brent Campbell, chief marketing and communications officer for Winston-Salem / Forsyth County Schools, said district officials are not taking a position on the issue.

“We are not medical providers but always work with medical providers / partners to support whatever is in the best interest of student and staff health and safety,” Campbell wrote in an email.