The full Senate will consider a bill forbidding a requirement of proof of vaccination when people go to certain places.
The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the bill to the full chamber on Thursday afternoon. The regular legislative session concludes this Saturday.
House Bill 4012 would forbid government entities at the state or local level, higher education institutions or hospitals from requiring proof of covid-19 vaccination as a condition for entering. The bill would invite people who believe they are being harmed by such policies to sue.
Earlier discussion in the House of Delegates revealed few, if any, places in West Virginia requiring proof of vaccination for the public to enter.
The bill was one of several meant in reaction to the precautions put in place during the pandemic, although several were screened out over the course of the legislative process.
Over the course of the pandemic, state officials have attributed 6,544 deaths of West Virginia residents to covid-19.
West Virginia is in the bottom quarter of states in terms of the percentage of population considered fully vaccinated.
The Judiciary Committee asked a few questions of counsel about how the bill would work, but otherwise didn’t debate it much.
The Senate Health Committee gave a took a look at the bill earlier this week.
Another covid-related bill, one to forbid mask requirements in schools, seems to have stalled out in the Senate.
That bill, HB 4071, passed the House of Delegates and then was advanced by the Senate Education Committee on March 2. But that bill was also assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which hasn’t taken it up. Today was the last day bills were being considered in committee in the Senate.
And earlier this week a Senate Committee voted down another bill inspired by the pandemic, saying that if employers have vaccine requirements then evidence of natural immunity or antibodies would suffice.
Much of the committee’s discussion Monday afternoon focused on whether the bill would actually be workable in real-life situations. Members noted that the bill doesn’t define an appropriate level of antibodies for the range of diseases that might be covered. And it doesn’t define what methods would be used as proof of an effective level of immunity.