Pennsylvania's Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said as of right now the state does not plan to make the COVID-19 vaccination a requirement for children who go to school.
"We have no plans to make the COVID-19 vaccine required for anyone including school children," she said. "In fact there really have not been adequate studies done to date with the vaccines on children under 18 years of age. Some of the companies are starting those trials now. So, we'll wait and see what the science tells us in terms of the vaccine in young people. We expect it to be safe and effective but we're going to have to prove that."
Dr. Levine added, "We do not plan at this time to immunize the children through the schools. We'd be working more through the healthcare system including when the time comes where children are indicated to receive the vaccines through their healthcare personnel, pediatricians, family physicians and perhaps pharmacies. So, we're still working out that plan. But, again, the vaccines aren't licensed for children."
Dr. Levine's comments came during a press conference were she and Pennsylvania's Acting Secretary of Education Noe Ortega also announced the state is expanding its COVID Alert PA app to allow children 13 and over to join pending parental permission.
"Middle and high school students will be able to add their phones to the fight and help in contact tracing that occurs in their schools if a positive case is identified," said Levine.
There have been 8,150 COVID-19 cases in children ages 5-18 just over the past two weeks, bringing the statewide total to nearly 28,000.
Right now, the statewide percent positivity is nearly at 12%. Forest County is the only county in the state with a percent positivity below 5%.
Districts are still responsible in the state for making individual decisions about pulling students out of class to move to all remote learning. Th PA Department of Education is advising schools that resident in counties with substantial transmission levels to move to cyber.
"Within that level of transmission we do recommend that schools consider moving to remote learning," said Noe Ortega, acting PA Secretary of Education, who added he wants to honor the local control decisions for districts. "For those institutions that choose not to move to a remote learning option than the important aspect here is that they agree to double down during this attestation form to adhere to the mitigation strategies as it relates to face coverings. And, then on top of that to make sure they monitor local levels of transmission that happen at their schools."
The Pennsylvania Department of Health announced 4,268 new cases of COVID-10 on Monday with an additional 5,529 new cases reported Sunday. That brings the two-day total to 9,797 and the statewide total to 361,464.
More data is available here.
Out of those COVID-19 numbers:
-Hospitalizations: 4,405 are hospitalized with 918 in the intensive care unit. Most of the patients hospitalized are ages 65 or older, and most of the deaths have occurred in patients 65 or older. The trend in the 14-day moving average of number of hospitalized patients per day has increased by nearly 3,000 since the end of September.
- Deaths: As of 11:59 p.m., Saturday, November 28, there were 75 new deaths and as of 11:59 p.m., Sunday, November 29, there were 32 new deaths reported for a total of 10,383 deaths attributed to COVID-19. County-specific information and a statewide map are available on the COVID-19 Data Dashboard.
- The statewide percent positivity for the week of November 20 – November 26 stood at 11.7%.
- The number of tests administered within the last 7 days between November 23 and November 29 is 392,547 with 47,557 positive cases. There were 47,836 test results reported to the department through 10 p.m., November 28 and 33,486 test results reported to the department through 10 p.m., November 29.