5-year-olds will soon need a vaccine passport to go indoors in San Francisco
Maria Wheeler
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San Francisco will soon be requiring vaccine passports for children as young as 5, although no children under the age of 20 have succumbed to Covid-19 in San Francisco to date.
“San Francisco is going to mandate 5-11 year olds have the vaccine to participate in society. Are parents going to have to carry birth certificates with them to restaurants and grocery stores to prove their 4 year olds are ineligible?” one person tweeted.
Susan Philip, the Acting Health Officer and Director of Disease Prevention and Control for the San Francisco Health Department, indicated in a press conference that children in the city will soon be subject to the same restrictions as adults with respect to showing proof of vaccine in order to enter restaurants, shopping centers, and other indoor destinations.
“We definitely want to wait and make sure children have an opportunity to get vaccinated,” Philip said.
“So that will happen no sooner than about eight weeks after the vaccine is available to kids, so there will be a limited time in which there will not be those requirements is our plan. But then at some point, five to 11-year-olds will also have to show proof of vaccination to access some of those same settings,” she continued.
Back in July, Philip stated that “Most children experience mild symptoms or none at all from the infection, and that hasn’t changed with the delta variant.”
Per CDC data, less than 700 Americans under the age of 18 have died from the virus since recording began in April 2020, and only 206 of them were under the age of five.
“This is the most draconian vaccine passport system anywhere in the United States or Europe. If you don’t feel safe sitting in a coffee shop unless the five-year-old across the room is vaccinated, you should stay home,” one person tweeted.
Survey data shows that many parents are skeptical or outright opposed to giving their children the Covid vaccine, with one KFF poll finding around a third of parents would “definitely not” give their children the vaccine.
Of the parents surveyed in the United States Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey who do not want to vaccinate their children, 69% said they are concerned about side effects, a third say they are waiting to see if it is safe, another third don’t trust the government, and 24% are not sure if children need it.
Philip indicated that parents would need to sign off on their children’s vaccinations. “For five to eleven-year-olds, it would be that child’s parents or guardian, legal guardian, who is able to provide consent for vaccination.”