By Christian Wade | The Center Square
Democratic lawmakers in New Hampshire are pushing for a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for public school and college students, but the measure faces an uphill climb in the GOP-controlled Legislature.
Legislation heard on Monday by the Committee on Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs would add COVID-19 vaccines to the list of required vaccinations for students to be admitted into K-12 schools as well as the state’s sprawling university and community college system.
Supporters of the measure said the goal is to ensure that public schools and colleges are safe for students and staff and prevent a return to remote learning if there’s another virus surge.
Democratic lawmakers in New Hampshire are pushing for a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for public school and college students, but the measure faces an uphill climb in the GOP-controlled Legislature.
“We know historically that we have never controlled any viral disease disrupting our schools without a vaccine mandate,” Rep. William Marsh, D-Wolfeboro, a physician and primary sponsor of the bill, told the panel. “This bill is really important to keep our schools open and safe.”
Marsh said including colleges and universities in the mandate is important because many of them were “epicenters” for COVID-19 infections among young people in the state. He pointed out that most private universities in the state, including Dartmouth College, require COVID-19 vaccinations for incoming students.
The proposal specifies that the requirement would only apply to age groups that have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to receive COVID-19 vaccines.
Currently, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is fully approved only for those 16 and older. The FDA has authorized emergency-use for children ages 5 to 15.
But the Democrat-backed measure faces strong opposition from the GOP-controlled Legislature and Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican who is opposed to vaccine mandates.
Marie Mercuri, immunization chief for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said the Sununu administration is opposed to the bill and has no plans to require COVID-19 vaccinations for school students.
“The department seeks to appropriately balance individual and parental choice and the goal of keeping children enrolled in school while protecting the health of all children,” she told the committee in testimony. “The department has no intention of adding immunization requirements for COVID-19 at this time.”
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers have filed their own proposal to require schools to accept medical, religious and conscientious objector exceptions for students who don’t get vaccinated.
Lawmakers are considering more than 30 bills in the upcoming legislative session dealing with vaccine mandates and COVID-19 restrictions, including masking.
House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, has filed legislation to block the state or local governments from enforcing any vaccine mandates imposed by the federal government.
Currently, only four states – New York, California, Louisiana and Illinois – and Washington, D.C., have requirements for COVID-19 vaccinations for public school students, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. Several other states are considering proposals in the current legislative session.
New Hampshire already requires students to be inoculated for polio, diphtheria, mumps, pertussis, rubella and tetanus. There are religious and medical exemptions from the mandates.
More news coming from Steve Kirsch: https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/news-today-embalmersdebate-in-canada?
The other vaccines mandated in the schools actually prevent infection and transmission and have established possible side effects andlong term effects. The proposal for passing this legislation has absolutely nothing to do with preventing covid. It cant. Thats not what the shots do. They are a therapeutic at best that can prevent a covid hospitalization which never happens in kids anyway….and btw they are risky with millions of adverse reactions and tens of thousands of deaths, maybe more. Long term effects….no one knows yet. The colleges and universities that have passed these same rules still have big covid outbreaks. Middlebury is a great example. This cant be about health. Its about taking the knee and conditioning compliance. Not my kids.
So I have a comment for those who regard many of the concerns expressed on the pages of TNR as a bit of over-the-top conspiracy theory. Surely there’s no global conspiracy to take over humanity and install a transhumanist dictatorship!
Oh, yes there is. They even state out in the open what they plan to do: it’s the WEF’s Great Reset. So what, just a bunch of proposals, right, that have nothing to do with Covid-19?
Watch this short video and maybe think again about what’s really going on, and the real dangers to all of humanity if these folks get their way. https://rumble.com/vufrgx-tranhumanism-klaus-schwab-and-dr.-yuval-noah-harari-explain-the-great-reset.html
In fairness, I don’t think Harari is advocating for the end of free will. But in the great technological society that he and the WEF envision, who gets to decide how/when/why to use that technological power and its ability to hack humans?
In another video, it’s pretty clear that Harari has a naive view of Covid-19 science, asserting that the medical community did a great job on cooperating and finding treatments for Covid. What really happened was massive censorship of doctors who disagreed with authoritarian, hi-tech (and profitable!) medicine. Is this how technology will function in the future: as a means to enforce massive censorship of unpopular and economically harmful opinions?
The Democrats are doubling down on stupid because they are losing control of it all..
Dementia Joe is so bad that he was blathering on about the high cost of “Prescription Jugs” today..
You need a whole lot of distractions when that is what you installed- and the VP is so bad they can’t use her either..