Colorado has developed a nasty habit of following questionable policies enacted by California, which is probably why concerns are being raised as to whether Gov. Polis is planning to mandate vaccines for school students. 

The concerns weren’t broached in a conservative publication (well, until now anyway), but from the state’s go-to news site for all things education and to check in on the teachers’ unions — Colorado Chalkbeat. 

Polis issued an executive order Sunday to give state health officials access to individual student information like their names, vaccination status, and school, claiming the data sharing is needed to track and trace the spread of COVID.

Chalkbeat asked the state about mandates: “The state’s email response did not answer a question about whether the state is considering a vaccine mandate and whether student vaccination data might inform that discussion.”

Chalkbeat also pointed out that California has already required school students to get the vaccine.

“We are committed to keeping children in schools learning in person, and data collection and analysis are the cornerstones of effective epidemiology,” the health department email said. “The additional data will help provide decision-makers with the information they need to make informed, science-based decisions.”

Decisions, nay, science-based decisions will be made. The Polis administration just won’t tell us what those decisions about our children will concern.

In the same order, Polis also made it easier to fire state workers who don’t comply with his vaccine mandate.

“The Democratic leader recently expressed support for firing unvaccinated health care workers,” Axios reports.

And yet at the same time, Polis administration health officials are backtracking on forcing the vaccine on all health care workers.

Colorado Hospital Association said there could be a revision to the emergency ruling this month to allow for medical and religious exemptions or for those who hire people that aren’t fully vaccinated yet. Many healthcare systems are waiting until the end of October to make their final decisions. There are different timelines at work with the state’s mandate along with each individual’s healthcare system’s mandates.

 

“We have seen some drafts of some revisions that CDPHE may recommend that the board consider for the emergency rule and that would including lowering a facilities compliance rate from 100% to 90%, which would be in line with our other vaccine mandate like with our influenza vaccine,” Senior Director of Communication for Colorado Hospital Association Cara Welch said.

Why does it make sense to ease vaccine requirements on health care workers, but crack down on state employees?

Because health care workers only have access to sick patients at high risk if they catch COVID, whereas government bureaucrats have access to political PAC donations for Polis’s reelection campaign next year, and they support vaccine mandates.