The US already required vaccination against eight diseases before the coronavirus

The controversy over vaccination orders in EE.UU. against COVID-19 It persists, despite the existence before the pandemic of the obligation to be vaccinated against at least eight diseases throughout the country, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center.

Fifty states and the District of Columbia require vaccinations for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, rubella and chickenpox, and with the exception of Iowa, all require immunization against mumps, Pew details.

In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends routine vaccination against a total of 16 diseases, including the eight already mentioned, from birth to 18 years.

Generally, children who have not received the required immunizations for their age cannot attend school (public, private or parochial) or enroll in child care programs, although there are exemptions for religious, medical or other reasons.

Pew stresses that many governors were against the initiative of US President Joe Biden to force employees of large companies to get vaccinated against covid-19, despite the fact that those mandates have existed since the XIX century.

By then, many cities and states began requiring that children be vaccinated against smallpox.

The Supreme Court upheld those mandates in a landmark 1905 decision.

A combination vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis became available in 1948, and was quickly added as a routinely recommended injection.

This week the country exceeded 400 million people over 12 years vaccinated against the coronavirus, that is more than 65%, but some states have not yet vaccinated about half of their population, many of them alluding to individual freedoms .

However, most states already require hundreds of thousands of their citizens – infants, toddlers, and school children, mostly – to be vaccinated against a variety of diseases.

While most vaccine mandates generally apply to children and teens, some states already require certain vaccines for specific categories of adults, recalls the Pew.

New York, for example, requires that all workers in hospitals, nursing homes, and other healthcare facilities be vaccinated against measles and rubella.

Rhode Island requires that child care workers are not only vaccinated against several common childhood illnesses, but also vaccinated against the flu every year.

Additionally, several states have specific immunization mandates for college students.

The United States is the country with the most cases and deaths caused by the covid-19 pandemic.

Of the more than 236 million accumulated cases in the world, 44 million are in the US and of the 4.8 million deaths, more than 707,000 have occurred in this country, according to the interactive table of Johns Hopkins University.