On Wednesday, Dec. 29, the San Diego Unified School Board announced their 3 stage plan to mandate student and staff COVID-19 vaccination. All SDUSD members have until December 20, 2021 to be fully vaccinated. The decision by the school board seems to overreach students’ rights of choice by overriding our personal rights for the better of everyone as a collective. 

Senior Ashton Horowitz had this to say about the school board’s recent decision, “I am not anti-vaccine. I feel like elder people and others with underlying conditions should 100% get the vaccine; however, the American youth does not need to be vaccinated for COVID when it has a 99.97% survival rate for our age group. I know some may argue that the vaccine stops the spread, but that just is not the case. People with the vaccine are still contracting COVID and spreading it. Because this is the case, the only reason you should get the vaccine is to protect yourself. I am a healthy 18-year-old who works out an hour a day, so I feel like the vaccine is not needed. I find it really strange that the government and schools are not telling us to work out for an hour a day and eat healthy… instead they want to push a vaccine that has only been out for a year.”

Even though students are skeptical, if they want to attend in person school and play sports they will have to get their first dose as the SDUSD board President Richard Barrera explained. It is baffling that the school board has decided to mandate vaccines before even enforcing social distancing rules.

Senior Alex Cockrell said, “I believe that the vaccine mandate can only help us get out of the pandemic, hopefully by December we can get rid of wearing these pointless masks.”