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The personal belief exemption to the COVID vaccine is paused for now.
It would have not allowed one's personal beliefs get in the way of receiving a vaccine that is meant to prevent COVID-19. State Senator Richard Pan of Sacramento said yesterday he is pausing the movement of the bill due to low COVID vaccine rates. "Until children's access to COVID vaccination is greatly improved, I believe that a state-wide policy to require COVID vaccination in schools is not the immediate priority, although it is an appropriate safety policy for many school districts in communities with good vaccine access," Pan said in a news release. The senator wants people to get access and receive accurate information about COVID vaccinations. Governor Gavin Newsom has said the state will eventually require all California schoolchildren to be vaccinated against the COVID, but has not enforced it yet because while federal regulators have authorized the vaccine for use on children in an emergency, they have not yet given it final approval. Once that has full approval, Newsom says the state's vaccine mandate will likely take effect the following semester.
A recent update from the Associated Press states that the state will delay the COVID vaccine mandate for schoolchildren until at least summer of 2023. Actively, other vaccine-related bills are still alive in the California Legislature, including one that would let school children 12 and older receive the COVID vaccine without their parents' permission.