Note that not all vaccines prevent you from being infected. That's called "sterilizing" immunity. Many vaccines simply prevent you from getting sick, but you can still catch and spread the disease. Where COVID-19 vaccines will fall on that range (it's not a clear binary) isn't yet known, and will likely depend on the type of vaccine. This is why the relatively dangerous (https://www.who.int/csr/don/01-september-2020-polio-sudan/en...) live-Polio vaccine is still being used in some areas: the safer options protect you, but don't provide enough immunity to actually wipe out Polio entirely.

There's also the issue that the fatality rate for the <19 year age group is very low, about 0.003%(1), and even lower for the slightly older school aged crowd (approximately 0.001%(2), 1/10,080 of the 85+ demographic). It'll take time and large studies before we can actually prove that a vaccine is safer than COVID-19 for that age group. Note how a previous H1N1 vaccine turned out to cause serious narcolepsy in a minority of people: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/history/narcoleps... There's also the problem that you need enough people in the test to be exposed to COVID-19 naturally: vaccines can in some circumstances make infections worse - an issue that has made developing the closely related SARS vaccine hard - and you need large studies to detect that in cases like young people where the disease isn't very deadly to begin with.

A safer option would be to provide vaccinations for adults working in schools, starting with those most at risk, and working down to least at risk as safety evidence builds up.

1) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena... 2) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investi...

Not for at least a year they won't - there's just not enough supply for them to require that. And any available supply will go to elderly and essential workers first.

>Whether folks want it or not, public schools will probably require it of all students.

Unfortunately this will be quite some time away still. None of the vaccines currently in phase 3 trials are targeting approval for use in children.