Children ages 5 to 11 may soon be required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to attend certain public events in the Bay Area, according to officials, but not everyone is on board just yet.
As of this week, San Francisco, Berkeley and Contra Costa County have orders in place that require people ages 12 and older to show proof that they are fully vaccinated before entering indoor businesses where they remove their masks to eat or drink or tend to breathe heavily from exercising. San Jose requires that people ages 12 and older show vaccination proof for events with more than 50 people held at public-owned indoor facilities such as the SAP Center, the convention center and city-owned theaters.
But now that children ages 5 to 11 are eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines, Bay Area officials are beginning to consider whether these younger children will also be subject to these proof-of-vaccination requirements.
The first COVID-19 vaccinations were provided to Bay Area children ages 5-to-11 on Wednesday, just one day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for this age group.
San Francisco Health Officer Dr. Susan Philip said at a recent virtual town hall meeting that she expects the city’s order requiring eligible people to show proof of vaccination prior to entering public indoor spaces, such as restaurants, bars and movie theaters, to be extended to younger children in a couple of months.
“We definitely want to wait and make sure children have an opportunity to get vaccinated, no sooner than eight weeks after the vaccine is available for kids,” Philip said. “There will be a limited time where there will not be those requirements. But then at some point, 5-to-11-year-olds will also have to show proof of vaccination to access some of those settings.”
Officials from the San Francisco Department of Public Health echoed that plan, saying that the city will reevaluate its vaccination and masking requirements once the younger children have been given enough time to get vaccinated.
“As with children 12-17 who may not have personal identification, we will follow the same approach with the younger kids such that they would not be penalized for not having an ID,” a department spokesperson wrote in an email.
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said Thursday that he also would like to expand the city’s proof-of-vaccination requirement to younger children in the coming weeks, though it would require a vote by the full city council.
“It’s important for us to give families the time it takes to get their children vaccinated,” he said. “But I will support extending a vaccination mandate for our large public event venues because those indoor venues bring thousands of people together in an environment where it’s imperative for us to do everything to mitigate the risk of a superspreader event and vaccination is the best strategy to reduce that risk.”
Although COVID-19 infection rates may seem manageable at the moment, Liccardo said the city needs to use “sensible strategies” like this to mitigate the risk of a future spike in community spread.
Meanwhile, in Contra Costa County, officials are more hesitant to take make a call just yet.
Contra Costa Health Services spokesperson Karl Fischer said the county does not yet have any plans to extend its vaccination proof order to include children younger than 12.
“We do know that it will take some time before most families in Contra Costa County with 5- to 11-year-olds have had an opportunity to vaccinate newly eligible children, and so we are not currently considering a change to the order,” Fischer said in an email. “We cannot predict whether pandemic conditions will require a change in the future.”
Calls and emails to Berkeley officials were not returned on Thursday, so it is unclear whether the city has plans to expand its proof of vaccination requirement.