If it takes a vaccine mandate to protect area’s students, so be it

Several private colleges and some private primary/secondary schools have issued mandates for students to be vaccinated.

So what do these schools know about COVID-19 that others don’t? Nothing, which leads to a bigger question: Why are these schools acting while others won’t?

Unfortunately, there’s no vaccination mandate for students at public schools and most private ones in Nevada. Nor is there a mandate in place for students at UNLV, UNR and the other six institutions overseen by the Nevada System of Higher Education. The good news is that Clark County School District and Nevada System of Higher Education staff are being required to either get vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID-19 testing.

Last week, as schools were preparing to open, Gov. Steve Sisolak issued a plea for Nevadans to get themselves and their eligible children vaccinated, saying he didn’t want to be forced to close schools again, issue a vaccination mandate, impose business closures or capacity restrictions. “No one likes the government telling them what they have to do,” he said.

We’d beg to differ in this case, though. Protecting public health and safety sometimes requires the public to accept mandates — think speed limits, capacity limits in public places, the disposal of toxic chemicals, limitations on use of firearms in city limits, and many more. Requirements for some vaccinations have been on the books for years at both K-12 schools and UNLV, so why not a COVID-19 vaccine too?

Where Sisolak is correct, though, is in saying that mandates and shutdowns can be avoided if unvaccinated Nevadans take action.

We’ll again add our voice to those urging everyone in Nevada, including those involved in Nevada’s public schools, to get vaccinated. That list includes students 12 and older, parents, teachers, staff — anyone who, if unvaccinated, could infect others in the system.

With the return of students to classrooms, an extra layer of personal responsibility kicks in — an all-for-one, one-for-all mindset to protect ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbors and our children amid this horrific outbreak driven by the delta variant and the state’s maddeningly stubborn unvaccinated rate.

There is nothing more patriotic than Americans pulling together to defeat a common enemy: the virus.

Nevada, we’re coming off a three-day reporting period where we logged 3,010 new COVID-19 infections and 35 deaths, helping push the two-week moving average to a whopping 981 cases. The two-week number reached as low as 132 in early June, meaning our current level is seven times higher than it was then. The rate of positivity has jumped to more than 16% from a little over 3% in early June.

The numbers don’t lie: COVID is spreading like wildfire, and the vast majority of people getting sick from it are unvaccinated.

No one wants to see the disease spread in our schools, and no one wants to relive the school shutdowns of 2020 and the subsequent shift to remote learning only. That approach worked for some students academically, but far too many struggled with it and fell behind. Data released by CCSD showed that 44% of students received at least one D and 39% got one or more F grades during the spring semester of 2021, up from 34% and 22%, respectively, during the 2019-20 school year.

The vaccines have been proven effective in protecting people from contracting the virus, including the highly virulent delta variant, and when breakthrough cases happen, serious side effects have been vanishingly few.

Meanwhile, as shown by our numbers of late, the ramifications of not getting vaccinated are alarmingly plain to see — a good chance of becoming infected, getting seriously ill and possibly dying.

This doesn’t have to happen, to us or to our kids.

“This is about more than just contracting the virus and getting safe,” Sisolak said last week. “It’s about protecting your fellow Nevadans. It’s about protecting ... jobs.”

Editor's note: This editorial has been revised to correct an error regarding Adelson Educational Campus, which was mentioned in the original version. The school requires vaccinations for employees but not for students.