In California, Governor Gavin Newsom is relaxing the rules and regulations related to the mask mandates and highlighting that the pandemic has reached the ending phase. Despite this, a slew of COVID-19 related bills is in the works beneath the Capitol dome, including bills to require immunizations for children and workers, to allow 12 to 17-year-olds to acquire the vaccine without a parental agreement, and more.
The vaccination working groups of the democratic legislators mentioned that their objective is to increase the vaccination rates in all of the age groups, develop the state vaccine registration database, and work on the misinformation related to the virus and the vaccine.
The adoption of these bills would make California an outlier with the other states and give it to the nation’s harsh COVID-19 rules and regulations.
Moreover, other of the states are working on different mandates and legislation related to COVID-19, but none has appeared to have the coordination of this effort, steered by some of the most strong legislators in Sacramento.
The Democratic Sen. Josh Newman of Fullerton, who is a member of the group, mentioned, “These bills all attempt to bring cohesion, consistency and clarity to our overall approach and response to the pandemic.”
The bills that were included,
• SB 871 would require all children 0 to 17 to get the COVID-19 vaccine to attend child care or educational institutions;
• SB 866 would permit the kids 12 to 17 to get the COVID-19 vaccine without parental consent;
• SB 1479 would need the schools to continue testing as well as to create testing plans;
• SB 1018 would need online platforms to be more transparent about how information is pushed out to consumers;
• SB 1464 would force law enforcement officials to enforce public health orders;
• AB 1993 would require all employees, including independent contractors, to show proof of COVID-19 vaccine to work in California;
• AB 1797 would make changes to the California Immunization Record Database;
• AB 2098 would reclassify the sharing of COVID-19 “misinformation” by doctors and surgeons as unprofessional conduct that would result in disciplinary action.
The head of a voice for choice that is a group focused on informed consent that has fought to keep the personal belief exemptions for the needed vaccines from 2015, “With these types of regulations, it doesn’t matter who you are: If you work or have children in California, you will be affected by these mandates. This is going on while the rest of the world is getting rid of mandates and COVID requirements. And the governor is talking about his smarter plan and that we are moving into the endemic phase.
