COVID-19 vaccines should be required for Costa students

By Matt Moro

Staff Writer

With Costa now welcoming students at 100% in-person capacity, the controversial question arises whether or not students should be fully vaccinated in order to attend school. Costa students should be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine due to the confirmed safety of the Pfizer vaccine, continuously growing impact of COVID-19, and to help the country return to normalcy and safety. 

According to a Gallup poll, 56% of people are in favor of mandating vaccines for highschool students. This makes for a largely disputable topic with opinions split almost half and half. But the issue of legality emerges with a school attempting to mandate a vaccine. According to the LA times, students in the LAUSD school district will be required to be fully vaccinated by January of 2022, further pressuring Costa to make the intelligent choice of mandating vaccination. 

This month, the Food and Drug administration approved the Pfizer vaccine in order to encourage people to get vaccinated and prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to ABC News. This approval settles much skepticality revolving around the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine, which had been one of the largest factors preventing many from receiving the shot. 

If the COVID-19 vaccine is mandated, many hardships businesses and families have been dealing with during the pandemic will be alleviated. According to the University of New Hampshire, the number of jobs in California are down 6.4% 

from February 2020 to July 2021. If all become vaccinated, herd immunity can be achieved, meaning the end of the pandemic and the economies return back to normal with an increase in jobs.

Working together as students and as a community towards herd immunity will allow us to return to normal life. According to CNBC News, it is becoming more and more difficult to return to the workplace, avoid quarantines, travel, and attend university without being vaccinated. This rule should serve as an incentive for those currently unvaccinated to receive the vaccine, allowing them to participate safely in society. 

Some people believe students at Mira Costa Highschool should not be required to be vaccinated because it goes against their personal or political values. According to Vox, the top 2 reasons Americans don’t want to get vaccinated is because they don’t see Covid-19 as a threat and because they don’t want to experience the side effects of the vaccine. Nonetheless, there are better alternatives to increase vaccinations than a mandate like creative, persuasive incentives. For example, according to California State Universities, students who prefer not to be vaccinated are only able to attend classes virtually. The setback is that online courses and resources are extremely limited compared to in person learning, which drives students to get vaccinated. 

Costa students should be required to get the vaccine because Pfizer is now FDA approved, the burden of Covid-19 is significant enough for a vaccine mandate, and vaccines will be our ticket into a sense of normalcy. Because only the state of California has the authority to mandate the vaccine, Costa should actively create incentives to increase vaccination rates among the student body.