California Backs Down, Won’t Mandate COVID-19 Vaccines For Children

The state of California has long taken extremist positions on COVID vaccine and related policies.

Unsurprisingly, one of the most far left areas of the country has repeatedly enforced vaccine passports and mandates. Cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles were some of the earliest adopters of such discriminatory measures.

Soon after the vaccines rolled out, Governor Gavin Newsom publicly stated his intention to mandate COVID vaccines for schoolchildren statewide.

Many other cities and jurisdictions followed their example, or went further. Washington D.C. for example, was seemingly content to let huge numbers of students miss school due to their unnecessary policies.

READ: VACCINE MANDATE IN D.C. SCHOOLS COULD CAUSE 40% OF BLACK STUDENTS TO MISS SCHOOL

But, in a rare bit of sanity and a tacit admission of defeat from Newsom, California quietly admitted that it will end its vaccine mandate for children.

California Governor Gavin Newsom wears a face mask as he prepares to give a briefing after touring a Covid-19 vaccination site on February 22, 2021 in Long Beach, California. - US President Joe Biden will lead a remembrance ceremony Monday to mark the dark milestone of 500,000 American Covid-19 deaths, but plans for easing the lockdown in Britain and a surge in vaccinations worldwide prompted growing optimism. (Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

Vaccine Mandates Were Always Pointless And Harmful

There was never any justification for such mandates for children.

Newsom followed the political advice of "experts," who were almost immediately proven wrong about what the vaccines can do.

They, and he, repeatedly assured the public that being vaccinated was a compassionate act to protect others. Even though it was abundantly clear almost immediately that vaccination did not protect against infection or transmission.

Children in particular have always been at remarkably low risk of serious complications from COVID. Before and after vaccines were available, COVID has never made much of an impact on childhood mortality.

Instead of celebrating the low risk, activists and politicians decided to enact discriminatory mandates while also ignoring potential harms.

With many parents rightfully choosing not to vaccinate their children, such policies would have excluded millions of kids from school, after the damage caused from lockdowns and school closures.

READ: CHILDREN BORN DURING PANDEMIC ARE ‘UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE’ DUE TO MASKS, COVID RESTRICTIONS

Mandates were an indefensible overreach, designed to appease political factions, not to promote public health.

The end of this policy is cause for celebration. But it's also cause for criticism of Gavin Newsom and those who advised him that such measures were advisable in the first place.