N.C. Commission Unanimously Rejects Vaccine Mandate
Parents gather to protest outside the N.C. Commission for Public Health meeting to consider a petition to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for high school seniors. Source: Travis Long
On February 2nd, the N.C. Commission for Public Health unanimously denied a petition to require "individuals 17 years of age or… entering the 12th grade" to be vaccinated against COVID-19. In calling for this policy change, the petition pointed to the fact that "while voluntary vaccination is a laudable goal, research is clear about the importance of vaccine requirements for achieving high vaccination rates." These vaccination rates are consequential, the petition claims, as they are "the single most important means for preventing COVID-19 illness and transmission." The petition, created by four Appalachian State University professors, seems to target high school seniors in hopes of filling college campuses with vaccinated individuals, which was the intention of their September 2021 petition for vaccine mandates for North Carolina’s public universities. Although over 250 UNC system faculty signed the September petition, it has yet to be addressed by the Commission. Moreover, Assistant Attorney General John Barkley has recently said that the Commission "doesn’t have the authority to require immunizations for college students alone," hence the need for the second petition.
State health officials, responding to the petition, did not see the same overwhelming importance to mandate COVID-19 vaccines at this time. In a letter from Mark Berton, Dr. Elizabeth C. Tilson, State Health Director and the Chief Medical Officer for the Department of Health and Human Services, and Dr. Kelly Kimple, Chief of Women’s and Children’s Health Section, it was made clear that "with information about vaccine doses and booster scheduling still evolving," they believe that “it is premature for the Commission to codify the immunization schedule through rulemaking."
Governor Roy Cooper also came out against the proposal for the mandate, saying that he was "going to agree with" his "health officials that at this point, saying "it’s not time to do that."
Hearing this advice from state leaders in both the medical and political fields, the Commission largely echoed the same concerns in their denial. Commission chairman Dr. Ronald May, "a strong proponent for the vaccines," said that he does not "think this is the right time to address this for school-age children." Dr. Ritesh Patel followed suit by wanting to wait until "we have more stability in the vaccines that are available and what happens to this pandemic."
Two groups, Moms for Liberty and Citizen Advocates for Accountable Government, also made their voices heard, showing up on the day of the vote to spread a message of the importance of parents' freedom and for parents being the rightful authority to decide whether their kids get the vaccine. One parent, Sondra Simmons, portrayed this sentiment well, saying, "this is not the country I wanted my children to be raised in. They're slowly chipping away our freedoms."
This message of protecting the authority and freedom of parents resonated with some of the commission members. Dr. Michael Riccobene said that he thinks that "every parent and adult should have the right to choose whether or not they receive the COVID vaccine."
Currently, in North Carolina, 48% of people aged 12 to 17 and 26% of people aged 5 to 11 have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, well below the general 65% vaccination rate for the state. Yet, despite these low vaccination rates, about half of North Carolina school districts have dropped their mask mandate. The Republican Speaker of the House, Tim Moore, has celebrated this trend, saying that "it’s parents, not politicians who should be making these decisions for their children." This dropping of mask mandates follows a growing national trend of easing mask mandates, with ten states, including New York, Virginia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and California, recently relaxing their mask mandates. Moreover, the rescinding of mask mandates also comes at a time when daily COVID cases in North Carolina have fallen precipitously since the middle of January.
The letter to the Commission, referenced earlier in the article, that recommended rejection of the vaccine mandate did include, however, the caveat that "the Commission could consider adding a COVID-19 vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule at a later date." But, observing the repealing of mask mandates, the plummeting daily COVID cases, the opposition from state officials on all sides of the aisle, and the objections from state health officials, it seems highly unlikely that the Commission will institute a mandate for COVID-19 vaccines for school-aged children in North Carolina.