The Democratic state lawmaker announced the move in an April 14 press release posted on his website. Pan first introduced Senate Bill (SB) 871, which sought to require COVID-19 vaccines for children from kinder to twelfth grade in the Golden State, in January.
"Unfortunately, COVID vaccination rates – particularly among children – are currently insufficient. [The] state needs to focus its [efforts] on increasing access to COVID vaccinations for children through physicians and other health providers who care for children and … [giving] families accurate information about the COVID vaccine. Until children's access to COVID vaccination is greatly improved, I believe that a statewide policy to require COVID vaccination in schools is not the immediate priority," said Pan.
Edwin Kirby, spokesman for the state senator, echoed Pan's sentiment regarding children's COVID-19 vaccination.
"Given that the state's vaccination rate among five- to 11-year-olds is at 34 percent, essentially, it doesn't make sense until we deal with these access issues for the younger kids to move forward with the bill," he told the Daily Californian. "We thought there would be a lot more uptake, frankly, of the [COVID-19] vaccine as well by this point."
Pan first introduced SB 871 to the California State Legislature on Jan. 24. The proposal indicated that any student who wishes to enroll in either a private or public elementary or secondary school must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 prior to their admission. (Related: California legislators, including Richard Pan, trying to force all schoolchildren to get "vaccinated" for covid.)
Children shouldn't get injected with the COVID-19 vaccine to begin with
Pan defended the benefits of vaccinating children against COVID-19 in his April 14 statement, describing vaccination as "the cornerstone of safer schools and neighborhoods." He claimed that the COVID-19 shots "have proved safe and effective in reducing the risk of hospitalizations and death from COVID," "decreased infection rates and transmission" and "lowered rates of post-COVID symptoms."
However, a former Trump administration official denounced COVID-19 vaccination for children – which the California state senator is advocating.
Writing for the Brownstone Institute, Dr. Paul Elias Alexander called on Pfizer to "leave the children alone" in an October 2021 piece. He denounced the vaccine maker's plan to obtain approval for injecting children aged five to 12 as "absolutely reckless, dangerous … and without any scientific basis."
"The published evidence is conclusive that the risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19 in children is almost nil. It is clear that children are at very low risk of spreading the infection to other children [and] adults, taking it home, becoming ill, or dying," wrote Alexander.
The former scientific advisor at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cited a report by researchers from Johns Hopkins University that looked at a group of 48,000 children infected with COVID-19. They found no COVID fatalities in the group, and further analysis found "a mortality rate of zero among children without a pre-existing medical condition such as leukemia."
Dr. Marty Makary, the team's head researcher, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that their findings have "significant implications" for healthy children and whether they need to be injected with two COVID-19 vaccine doses.
"There is very little risk and no data or evidence to justify any of the COVID-19 injections in children. Under no circumstance should we expose the risk of the injections to children. To consider putting risk on children so as to protect adults is perverse, reckless and very dangerous," the former HHS advisor concluded.
Vaccines.news has more stories about politicians who want to mandate COVID-19 shots for children.
Watch Richard Pan below explaining to the Sacramento Bee why a bill for mandatory vaccination is a must.
This video is from the Vaccines and Vaccination channel on Brighteon.com.
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Californian Senator Richard Pan pushing to outlaw parental rights in all medical decisions.
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