Despite the delegated House of Delegates in West Virginia, which rejects a law that would enable religious exceptions for the requirements for the school vaccine, says governor Patrick Morrisey’s office that his executive order for religious exceptions is still standing. (Getty Images)
Despite a reproduction of religious exceptions to the school vaccine requirements by the legislators of the state on Monday, the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health announced on Tuesday that it will continue to adhere to an arrangement by governor Patrick Morrisey who need religious exceptions.
“Yesterday’s house vote over Senate Bill 460 Influences the executive ordinance of governor Morrisey, which enables religious exceptions for school vaccines, ”wrote Gailyn M. Markham, deputy communication director for the Office for Joint Administration.
Julie Bertram, coordinator of health services for Wood County Schools, said since the Executive Order on January 14, the Bureau for Public Health had reacted to some families in their school system, which have applied for religious exceptions that the state “no measures” would not meet the child who did not meet the requirements for the immunization. The families, school nurses and the school system should also receive a copy of the letter from the office, she said.
School nurses then inform the families that they receive a letter about their liberation from the Bureau for Public Health and that their child may come to school.
Bertram said that after the legislator rejected the bill, she wonders whether the letter is qualified as a liberation.
The State Ministry of Education has no modern guidelines on this matter on Tuesday, said Bertram.
A spokesman for the State Ministry of Education did not immediately answer a question of how the department had advised parents who asked about religious exceptions.
The House voted at Senate Bill 460 with a voice of 42 yays and 56 Nays on Monday. Legislation would have enabled families to make objections to the shots for religious reasons in order to provide their school administrator a written statement in order to be freed from the requirements. The state’s private and parochial schools could have set their own requirements for vaccines. It would also have revised the process that the state has for medical exemption for the vaccination requirements and enables the medical provider of a child to submit a medical exemption without the approval of the state vaccination officer.
Until the Executive Ordinance, West Virginia was one of the country’s five states that only enabled medical exceptions for the requirements for school vaccination. After the vote on Monday, the state Democrats asked the governor to lift the executive regulation.
A Morrisey spokesman said order that was still in force and would not be lifted.
“We still have three weeks from [the legislative] Session, so you can try to bring [the legislation] Back, but I’m pretty sure that the West Virgins spoke, “said Bertram.
