1,428 Waterloo Region high school students suspended over out-of-date vaccination records [Video]

Nearly 1,500 Waterloo Region high school students have been suspended over out-of-date vaccination records.

“There’s 1,428 students that are suspended as of this morning,” David Aoki, director of infectious diseases and chief nursing officer for the Region of Waterloo, said Wednesday. “We have clinics running, and we’re hoping to reduce that number as quickly as possible.”

Provincial legislation requires all elementary and secondary school students to be vaccinated against diphtheria, polio, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (chickenpox) and meningitis, unless they have a valid exemption. If not, students can be suspended for up to 20 days.

“This will be another thing that will happen again next year when we run this process. So it’s better to even submit an exemption if your choice is not to vaccinate or submit the paperwork if you have it, because we don’t want to have this recur next year,” Aoki said.

When suspension orders were sent to familieslast month, 6,819 secondary school …