| MCLEAN, VA – Terry McAuliffe today called on all Virginia school systems to require educators and school staff to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to keep students safe in the classroom, schools open, and Virginia’s economy on track. The announcement follows Terry’s call last week for all Virginia health systems and health care providers to require employees to be vaccinated, and his announcement that the Terry for Virginia campaign requires all staff to be fully vaccinated.
“A fully vaccinated school workforce is imperative to our next generation’s success. With in-person learning resuming in school districts across the Commonwealth, it is critical to the health, wellbeing and future of the more than one million Virginia K-12 school students that our educators and school staff be fully vaccinated against COVID-19,” said Terry McAuliffe. “We simply can not take any chances when it comes to keeping our children safe, our schools open, and our economy strong.”
Reports from multiple states this week show the dire consequences of failing to take the pandemic seriously and enact recommended safety measures. For example, in states including Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi, where governors are prohibiting schools from following CDC guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19, dozens of schools have already been forced to close, and thousands of children are being quarantined following exposure. In one Florida school district, more than 5,000 school children were forced to quarantine already this school year. In Virginia, Richmond public schools announced this week that all school staff must be vaccinated by October 1.
As Virginia’s next governor, Terry will work to rebuild a stronger post-COVID economy that lifts up all Virginians, and he will fight to make sure all Virginians have quality, affordable health care. Terry has released detailed plans to create good-paying jobs, accelerate Virginia’s path to a $15 minimum wage, provide workers with paid sick, family and medical leave, and make health care more affordable. Getting all eligible Virginians vaccinated as quickly as possible is a critical piece of this effort.
Terry has released 18 detailed plans to strengthen Virginia’s education system and dramatically increase teacher pay, help secure Virginia’s economic recovery from COVID-19, ensure Virginians have access to regular nutritious meals, address the broken, predatory system of prescription drug pricing, confront the gun violence epidemic, make Virginia the best state in the nation for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Health Care (STEM-H) and computer science education, tackle the housing crisis in the Commonwealth and invest in Virginia’s workforce in the post-COVID economy, ensure Virginians have access to high-quality, affordable health care, tackle climate change and secure Virginia’s clean energy future by 2035, lift up Black Virginians as the Commonwealth rebuilds from the COVID-19 pandemic, further advance LGBTQ+ rights, reform Virginia’s criminal justice system, create a flourishing rural economy, support entrepreneurial ecosystems and tackle rising costs and meet the health care needs, make higher education more affordable and boost Virginia’s agriculture and forestry industries. |
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