Should they be mandated?
Dr. Zink said Alaska generally has high acceptance for recommendations around COVID-19 and has no plans to mandate the COVID-19 vaccines for children.
Umair A. Shah, MD, secretary of health at the Washington State Department of Health, said, “Our number one ability to get people vaccinated is for them to be encouraged to do so, to be incentivized to do so, to do everything we can to make the vaccine choice the easy choice,” including eliminating language, cultural and access barriers.
However, he said, “in higher education, University of Washington and Washington State University have indicated they are going to require COVID vaccines for kids to come back to school. I do think that is something that is increasingly being looked at.”
Though the messages will be tailored differently across the states the bottom line will be the same, Dr. Shah said: The vaccines work and they are safe.
But most critically, “Vaccines are our pathway to moving forward and once and for all ending this pandemic,” he said.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.