Will the Bay Area’s 5- to 11-year-olds be required to show proof of vaccination for indoor events?

Just as children ages 5 to 11 are beginning to receive COVID-19 vaccines, Bay Area officials are considering whether they will be required to show proof of vaccination before entering certain public venues.

Officials in both San Francisco and San Jose indicated this week that they plan to expand their vaccination verification orders to this age group once parents have been given adequate time to get their children vaccinated. Contra Costa County, on the other hand, isn’t ready to make a call on it just yet.

The first COVID-19 vaccinations were provided to Bay Area children ages 5-to-11 on Wednesday, just one day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for this age group.

Under current local orders, San Francisco, Berkeley and Contra Costa County require people ages 12 and older to show proof that they are fully vaccinated before entering indoor businesses where they remove their masks to eat or drink or tend to breathe heavily from exercising. San Jose requires that people ages 12 and older show vaccination proof for events with more than 50 people held at public-owned indoor facilities such as the SAP Center, the convention center and city-owned theaters.

San Francisco Health Officer Dr. Susan Philip said at a recent virtual town hall meeting that she expects the city’s order requiring eligible people to show proof of vaccination prior to entering public indoor spaces, such as restaurants, bars and movie theaters, to be extended to younger children in a couple of months.

“We definitely want to wait and make sure children have an opportunity to get vaccinated, no sooner than eight weeks after the vaccine is available for kids,” Philip said. “There will be a limited time where there will not be those requirements. But then at some point, 5-to-11-year-olds will also have to show proof of vaccination to access some of those settings.”

Officials from the San Francisco Department of Public Health echoed that plan, saying that the city will reevaluate its vaccination and masking requirements once the younger children have been given enough time to get vaccinated.

“As with children 12-17 who may not have personal identification, we will follow the same approach with the younger kids such that they would not be penalized for not having an ID,” a department spokesperson wrote in an email.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said Thursday that he also would like to expand the city’s proof-of-vaccination requirement to younger children in the coming weeks, though it would require a vote by the full city council.

“It’s important for us to give families the time it takes to get their children vaccinated,” he said. “But I will support extending a vaccination mandate for our large public event venues because those indoor venues bring thousands of people together in an environment where it’s imperative for us to do everything to mitigate the risk of a superspreader event and vaccination is the best strategy to reduce that risk.”

Although COVID-19 infection rates may seem manageable at the moment, Liccardo said the city needs to use “sensible strategies” like this to mitigate the risk of a future spike in community spread.