White House pushes student shots

WASHINGTON >> The White House, worried that coronavirus vaccination rates among young people are lagging as the school year approaches, is enlisting pediatricians to incorporate vaccination into back-toschool sports physicals and encouraging schools to host their own vaccination clinics as part of a new push to get students their shots.

The initiative, announced Thursday by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, is part of a broader “return to school road map” aimed at getting students back to in-person learning this fall.

School officials around the country are worried that a surge in coronavirus cases, fueled by the highly infectious delta variant, will threaten the return of students.

Roughly 90% of the country’s educators are vaccinated, Cardona said during an appearance in the White House briefing room, and the administration sees vaccinating students as essential to keeping schools open. But experts and school superintendents said in interviews that increasing vaccination rates among students may be a slow, uphill battle.

“When you look at a map of the United States and you see those states that have low vaccination rates and high infection rates, those are the areas where superintendents are having problems in getting kids vaccinated,” said Dan Domenech, executive director of AASA: The School Superintendents Association, which represents about 13,000 superintendents around the country.