Update: The D.C. Council voted Tuesday to delay enforcement of the student COVID-19 vaccine mandate to the start of the 2023-2024 school year. Only Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto voted against the amendment, while Ward 3 Mary Cheh voted absent, and Ward 7’s Vincent Gray was absent.

Original

At-Large D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson says she will propose emergency, temporary legislation to delay D.C.’s COVID vaccine mandate for students over 12 to the 2023-2024 school year. The mandate was introduced a year ago, and was supposed to be enforced during this school year. This extension would be the second time that the deadline for COVID vaccination had been pushed — right now, students must show proof of vaccination by January 3.

The Washington Post was first to report on Henderson’s proposal.

Henderson says the extension would only apply to COVID vaccines: Other pediatric immunizations would be subject to the same deadlines as before. In an interview with DCist/WAMU, she said she is proposing the extension because of the constantly evolving COVID variants that frequently require additional boosters. (Within hours of Henderson’s announcement, DC Health announced it would make the latest bivalent booster — specifically effective against the Omicron variant —  available to children 5-11 years old.)

“Two shots is never going to be enough. You’re going to have to continuously up your immunity,” Henderson says. The original mandate was only focused on the initial two-shot series, but with new boosters potentially coming every year, Henderson says the policies should reflect that.

She says the extension is a way to buy time: Time to build a better public health infrastructure to administer vaccines, for families to become more comfortable with it, and to address inaccurate data that may exclude students accidentally.

The potential extension comes after schools have promised to enforce a “no shot, no school policy.” But despite D.C. officials’ efforts to get kids caught up on their vaccinations, tens of thousands of students were found to be out of compliance with their shots by September. The original deadline for COVID vaccinations for students 12 and older was 20 days after the start of the school year, but in late August, Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn delayed the COVID vaccine mandate further until January 3, 2023.

At a roundtable of D.C. school officials and councilmembers on Tuesday, school leaders said these deadlines are further complicated by a lack of accurate data on the community’s vaccinations, taking extra time from educators and potentially harming at-risk students.

The pushed deadline could provide families more time to get into compliance without students missing out on school, especially with fears the enforcement may deepen education inequities between Black and white students. About 92% of white children ages 12-17 have received their COVID vaccine compared to only 60% of Black children.

As of September, more than 23,000 students are listed as non-compliant with their vaccinations across D.C. and would potentially be unable to go to school under the current policy. However, immunocompromised staff and students could also be excluded without a mandate, advocates have argued, by being subjected to a high-risk environment with no masks or guarantee fellow classmates are vaccinated.

“On the one hand, someone can argue, ‘Well, having a vaccine mandate protects everyone,’ but then on the other hand, someone can also argue ‘If we’re excluding upwards of 20,000 students because we don’t have [vaccinations], where are those 20,000 students going?'” Henderson says.

The D.C. Council is set to vote on the proposal on Nov. 1.

Previously:

Messy Data And Poor Communication Bungle D.C.’s School Vaccine Enforcement, Officials Say
Here’s Where To Get Your Child Caught Up On Vaccines In D.C.
D.C. Delays Enforcement Of Student COVID Vaccine Mandate Until 2023
As The School Year Looms, D.C. Scrambles To Get Students Caught Up On Routine Vaccinations
More Than One Quarter Of D.C. Students Are Missing Routine Childhood Vaccines
D.C. Renews Push To Get Kids Routine Vaccinations Ahead Of Next School Year