By Raven Ramsey and Marisa Ferreira
Executive Theme Editor and Staff Writer
Continuing through the school year of 2021 to 2022, Mira Costa High School will not be implementing the Covid-19 vaccine for students or staff. Current action being taken to continue Covid-19 safety at Costa will consist of social distancing, morning RUVNA health scans that include known symptoms COVID-19 including coughing or sore throat, running nose, and fever and chills, an indoor mask requirement, and on-campus testing.
With Mira Costa aiming to accommodate parents and student’s rights, Costa will now be offering on-campus Covid testing on Wednesdays. So far a mandatory vaccination will not be implemented at Costa for the time being. As far as Costa’s principal Dr. Gerger is concerned, Costa will be waiting until Governor Gavin Newsom legally mandates the vaccine for students and staff in California.
“Our testing program takes place on campus and is supervised by nurses,” MBUSD Superintendent John Bowes wrote in a letter addressed to parents. “Participants can self-swab if they wish, or, if they need assistance, the nurses can administer the nasal swab.”
Beginning in the summer, COVID-19 testing was only offered to student athletes, but with the Homecoming dance being held Oct. 9, Costa began offering tests to all students and staff. According to Dr. Gerger, 1,200 tickets were sold and to ensure the students at the dance were safe, proof of a negative test had to be provided. However, masks were not required at the dance.
“There are a multitude of protocols and criteria that were met by the Mira Costa High School Student Government in planning the Homecoming dance,” ASB advisor Lisa Claypoole said. “Within less than ten days, we changed the food and made it so that every set was individually boxed, and we tested every single person that went to the dance, and so far there hasn’t been a super spread of COVID-19 amongst students.”
In addition to the RUVNA health screenings and social distancing, teachers are also required to have assigned seating for students in the classrooms. Doing this allows for them to be able to do contact tracing in the event that a student tests positive for COVID-19, and emails are sent to alert the student and parents of the confirmed case. So far, Costa has had 4 confirmed COVID-19 cases amongst students. With the cold and flu season coming, students experiencing symptoms are not recommended to come to school.
“With the onset of cold and flu season, it is important to remember that anyone who has symptoms should not come to school,” Superintendent John Bowes wrote. “COVID, cold, and flu symptoms overlap, and while in the past we may have sent symptomatic students to school because “it’s only a little cold” or “there’s a test scheduled for today that they can’t miss” or “they can power through,” this is no longer the case. If your student is symptomatic, please keep them home until they are well, and please consider seeking a COVID test to rule out the possibility of a COVID-19 infection.”
California represents 12 percent of educated students in the United States and is also responsible for 0.5 percent of school closures. According to “Get Vaccinated California,” all of the school closures in California were associated with non-vaccinated students. With these statistics, Newsom is directing the Department of Public Health to add COVID-19 to the required vaccines needed to attend schools.
So far, five schools in California have mandated the COVID-19 vaccine. For Costa students, Dr. Gerger says that the Manhattan Beach Unified School District (MBUSD) is waiting for the Governor to officially mandate the vaccine. When the vaccine does get mandated, it will be implemented in increments by grade, and require that grades seven through 12 get the vaccine first. Aside from the mandate being done in increments, all MBUSD staff will be required to receive the vaccine, no matter what grade they teach.
COVID-19 regulations, including the vaccine mandate, will take effect at the start of the following term, which could be Jan. 1 or July 1. Students who are under the age of full approval but within the grade span will be required to get vaccinated once they reach the age of full approval within a period of time to have received both doses. As stated before, adults will be held to the same standard as students for these protocols.
The main wait for the vaccine mandate is FDA approval. California currently holds the lowest number of COVID-19 case rates, but can not enforce a mandate for the vaccine without entire health approval from the FDA and the CDPH. The CDPH will also be responsible for making the requirements for vaccine exemptions.
“There are many additional important steps we can take to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our schools and community, such as wearing a mask, getting vaccinated when eligible, completing your student’s daily RUVNA screener, staying home when ill, and washing hands regularly,” John Bowes wrote. “We believe that regular testing is also a very important tool in this process, and we hope that your student will participate.”
For the future mandate schedule, the requirement of a COVID-19 vaccine only follows for in-person learning students. Independent study students will not be required to take the vaccine to continue their learning schedule. It is unclear yet if a hybrid option will be available for students through Costa yet, or what vaccine exemptions will entail.
For seniors getting ready to go to college next year, school choices may be dependent on whether they are vaccinated or not. As of publication, a database maintained by the Chronicle of Higher Education indicates that more than 680 public and private colleges across the U.S. will require students to get a coronavirus vaccine.
In addition to individual colleges announcing vaccine mandates, some large university systems are also requiring immunization, such as the State University of New York system. The 23-campus California State University system will also require vaccines. After previously signaling that it would wait for full Food and Drug Administration approval of COVID-19 vaccines before mandating inoculation, the CSU system now cites evolving circumstances as the reason for the requirement, pointing to surging coronavirus cases and the spread of the new delta variant.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, complications and deaths after getting COVID-19 immunizations, referred to as “adverse events“, are rare in the U.S., where more than 346 million doses of coronavirus vaccines were administered between Dec. 14, 2020, and Aug. 2, 2021. While analysis by Johns Hopkins University in Maryland puts the mortality rate at 188 deaths per 100,000 COVID-19 infections in the U.S., or less than 2%, those fatalities skew elderly, with CDC data attributing only 2.8% of coronavirus deaths to those under age 45.
Despite high survival rates for younger generations, some experts stress that student inoculations are key to avoiding a repeat of last spring. While healthy students may be less imperiled, those experts say it’s important to stop the transmission and further mutation of the coronavirus.
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