Centennial State News

Republican gubernatorial nominee Heidi Ganahl recently said that Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has tried to obscure his support of mandates by pressuring other entities to enact them.

Ganahl recently issued a press release ahead of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) vote on whether to recommend COVID-19 vaccines be added to children's vaccination schedules to state that regardless of the vote. She is opposed to vaccine mandates for children.

“This is a decision that should be left to parents. As governor, I will not require a COVID-19 vaccination to attend Colorado schools. Despite what he says now, Jared Polis mandated and quarantined our children. I will leave important decisions like this to parents. Polis pressured local boards and school districts to do his dirty work so he could claim he was against mandates. We need honesty and transparency in our government,” says Ganahl. 

The ACIP's 15 members unanimously voted in support of adding COVID-19 vaccines to the recommended list for children, Yahoo reported. CDC Director Rochelle Walenksy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will now need to approve the recommendation. The CDC's vaccination schedule is not mandated nationally, but states can choose to adopt it and to require those vaccinations for schoolchildren. 

“State laws establish vaccination requirements for school children,” according to the CDC website. “These laws often apply not only to children attending public schools but also to those attending private schools and day care facilities.”

The University of Colorado Boulder website states that students are required to show proof of "the initial series of vaccine plus one booster" or submit an exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Colorado School of Mines website states that students must submit proof of "full vaccination" in order to attend in-person classes during the 2022-2023 school year. The school "highly recommends" booster shots but does not require them "at this time."

Several University of Colorado students filed a lawsuit in January over the colleges' vaccine requirements, according to Bopp Law. 

“Students are not prisoners, and they should be afforded the right to refuse an unwanted medical treatment,” James Bopp, Jr. of The Bopp Law Firm, said. “CU’s Mandate violates the fundamental liberty and religious rights of CU’s students—it requires all CU students without any meaningful exemptions to take the COVID vaccine. CU is not seeking voluntary consent from its students to take the COVID vaccination—it is coercing its students under threat of virtual expulsion to take a vaccine even though the risks associated with the vaccine, especially for college-age students, are serious and increasingly recognized, and students are at an extremely low risk of adverse effects if they get a COVID infection.”

The vaccines do not prevent people from getting COVID-19 or spreading it to others, according to Mayo Clinic.