Could FDA approval lead to student vaccine mandate in Washington?

Gov. Jay Inslee announced a new vaccine mandate for all educators and school staff last week. But will the state consider a similar requirement for students?

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Currently, the mandate includes all K-12 educators, school staff, coaches, bus drivers, volunteers, and others working in school facilities. They will have until Oct. 18 to be fully vaccinated as a condition of employment. It also extends to Washington’s higher education system, as well as most child care and early learning providers who serve children from multiple households.

So, why hasn’t the requirement been extended to eligible students over the age of 12? According to Gov. Inslee, that’s at least partially been driven by the wait for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“We typically have had requirements for our students,” the governor told CNN’s Jake Tapper over the weekend. “It usually has been reserved when you get final approval from the FDA, which we hope would be relatively soon.”

The FDA has been working on an expedited timeline, ultimately granting full approval to Pfizer’s two-dose COVID-19 vaccine Monday morning.

Others have speculated that FDA approval will in turn allow more businesses and schools to enact their own vaccine requirements. As for whether that means Washington state will take further action, Gov. Inslee emphasized a focus on teachers and staff, at least for now.

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“That potentially could be a decision we could make, but right now let’s start with adults,” he noted. “If the teacher infects the child, the child could become ill, we may have to close the school again — we are trying to keep our schools open.”

In terms of that effort, Inslee pointed to new school mandates as “the only way to get on top of this beast,” with both cases and hospitalizations rising, especially in younger demographics.

“This is a beast — it is at the throats of Washingtonians and our school children, and unfortunately we’re having a demographic shift in the people who are in our hospitals today,” he described. “They are much, much younger, and we’re getting young people now who are exposed to this — this isn’t the virus we dealt with in the first instance.”

“If people make a decision to perhaps lose their life because they don’t want cancer treatment, that’s up to them,” he added. “But when you make a decision to expose our children and patients to this deadly virus when you have a tool at our disposal to use, that’s an issue for all of us.”

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