So... do you kick those newly vaccinated kids out of school because they're now contagious?
-Renegade
As in
possibly contagious?
Not everybody who gets vaccinated
will become contagious. If they did, there would be widespread evidence that this
was happening. And AFAIK, that has not been the case.
Prudence says a two day lay-up might not be unreasonable. But more for
the vaccine recipient's protection rather than for the other kid's since the recipient's immune system will be busy building immunity to what they were vaccinated for, and
may be mildly compromised as a result.
So how about possibly having school-aged children always get vaccinated
during the summer school break (as I always was) before returning to school? That's almost three full calendar months out of the classroom. Plenty of time to get it done - and
recover from it. It only takes a minute.
You could even have the public health department handle it like my town (and several churches and local businesses and pharmacies) do where I live. You don't need a full physician's exam to be vaccinated unless you're worried about something going in. The alternate vaccine distribution points in my town also have an ambulance and EMTs on standby onsite just in case something goes sideways for somebody. It's no more dangerous than being vaccinated in a doctor's office. My town (which is an admittedly well-to-do town) makes it so easy to get a flu or pneumonia shot there's almost a no excuse not to
if you
genuinely want one. Dirt cheap too ($20) if you can afford to pay for it. Absolutely free of charge if you can't.
So yes...there are alternatives beyond just bouncing kids out of school.
What happens here is that a child may be sent home for not having up-to-date vaccinations (if you don't have a medical justification backed by a physician's signature or a "religious" exemption) since vaccinations are mandatory for school attendance in my town's public school system. Same rule goes for our private schools, of which there are four. The Catholic parochial school system requires proof of current vaccinations as a condition of attendance. It's spelled out in their terms of service. So between public, private, and parochial schools that's roughly 99 point something percent of all school children here.
And since school attendance (or authorized home schooling) is
mandatory up to age 16 where I live, parents can run afoul of state
truancy laws if their kids aren't attending school due to their not being vaccinated. So there's a bit of an incentive there as well.
I guess the only kids who are able to get around it are the homeschooled kids. But they're a tiny fraction of the population so I don't think they pose a significant threat in my area where vaccination is the norm. However
if they visited Disney World...I have yet to hear of anybody launching an outbreak because they became contageous subsequent to being vaccinated. But people who have
not been vaccinated certainly have. So sending somebody home purely because they have been vaccinated doesn't seem either reasonable or necessary - as opposed to sending someone home who
hasn't. You are playing odds. But when you do that you have to take
significance into consideration. A tossed coin doesn't really have 50-50 odds of heads or tails. It
could land and stick on its thin side. But the likelyhood of that happening is so minute as to not even be worth considering. I think the same goes for spreading something
because you
were vaccinated. The warnings that are issued for that eventuality cover the specific groups (expectent mothers, newborns, HIV postives, et al.) that actually
might be at risk for that rare scenario. So I don't see where it's disingenuous or hypocritical to say it isn't really necessary to ban a recent vaccine recipient from school for a few days on the remote chance they're contagious. Especially in a school full of already vaccinated kids
and teachers.
Just my
anyway.
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