Whooping Cough Vaccine Deadline Arrives

The deadline to get the whooping cough vaccine is here for some, and quickly approaching for others.

As the law states, school doors close to the 5 percent of students grades 7 through 12 without a whooping cough vaccine.

“We started with about 7,700 kids last spring that were required to have the vaccination,” Coachella Valley School District’s Laura Fisher said.

As of Thursday at around noon-

“We had about 350, so we’re at 95% compliant for the district,” Fisher said.

Students who didn’t get their shot will be held in a separate room while the school calls their parents.

“We’ll be calling parents because they will not be allowed to attend school but what we’re hoping hoping we’ll have another clinic so that when the parent is called, they can take the child, go over to the clinic, get the vaccine, and come back to school,” Fisher said.

“If they come to school Tuesday morning and they’re not immunized, their parents would be called, and we’ll try to get them to go right over to get immunized at that time, but they will be excluded from school until they’re immunized,” Palm Springs School District’s Joan Boiko said.

Palm Springs School District students started school later, so they have more time to get the vaccine. Their deadline is not until Monday, September 26th, but the clock’s ticking.