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Sempolinski Opposes COVID-19 Vaccine For School Attendance

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee last week voted that the agency should update its recommended immunization schedules to add the COVID-19 vaccine, including to the schedule for children, something Rep. Joe Sempolinski opposes.

On Wednesday Sempolinski, a Republican who was elected in August and is not running for re-election in November, held his weekly press conference with members of the media from the 23rd Congressional District, including The Post-Journal and OBSERVER.

“The concern that I’ve had expressed to me by a variety of people as I’ve been out and about and a concern I’ve seen expressed on social media, in the press and elsewhere, is that this recommendation, adding of the (COVID-19) vaccine to the schedule of vaccines, will be used by states or other government entities or other institutions, to implement a vaccine mandate for children to attend school or other activities,” he said. “I’m very much against that. I want to make that perfectly clear. I am against mandating the adren. I’m against mandating the COVID vaccine, period. I’m philosophically opposed to these mandates.”

Any vaccine recommendation by the CDC for school attendance is something that states must approve. In New York, according to the state Health Department website, children attending day care and pre-K through 12th grade must receive the following vaccines to stay in school, include: Diphtheria and Tetanus toxoid-containing vaccine and Pertussis vaccine (DTaP or Tdap); Hepatitis B vaccine; Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine (MMR); polio vaccine; and the varicella (chickenpox) vaccine. For middle and high school students, Meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MenACWY) is also required.

Currently in New York there is no requirement for the COVID-19 vaccine to attend school.

Sempolinski notes parents may not want their child to get the COVID-19 vaccine or its boosters. “Parents know what is best for their children, not a Washington bureaucrat,” he said.

Sempolinski added that he is not opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine for those who desire it.

He also said he is not seeking to change what is already recommended for vaccines. The Post-Journal/OBSERVER asked him about the polio vaccine, something the Chautauqua County Board of Health discussed last month.

“Polio dramatically impacts and disproportionately impacts children. COVID-19 is the exact opposite. It dramatically impacts the elderly and barely impacts children at all,” he said.

In New York, the select vaccines, one of which is polio, are required for all students unless they have a valid medical exemption to immunization. This includes all public, private, and religious schools.

According to the state Health Department’s website, there are no non-medical exemptions to school vaccine requirements in New York, something Sempolinski disagrees with.

“I certainly support things like religious exemptions for existing vaccine mandates,” he said.

Even though an advisory panel has recommended the COVID-19 vaccine for children to attend schools, it’s not been officially adopted. According to the Associated Press, the immunization practices advisory committee is a body of experts that makes recommendations to the CDC about vaccines. Its recommendation to update the schedules, which included other revisions, still needs to be formally adopted by the agency and the amended schedules wouldn’t take effect until 2023.

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