Biden's education secretary says he supports mandates for teachers to be vaccinated against COVID-19

• Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said he supported COVID-19 vaccine requirements for teachers.
• About the same time, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he'd require vaccines or weekly tests for teachers.
• Students are returning to school this month as concerns rise concerning the Delta virus variant.

This month, students are starting a second straight school year during a coronavirus pandemic, but some people are still hesitant to get vaccinated even as the Delta virus variant surges. The situation seems to have prompted Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to support requiring all teachers to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

"I would favor the vaccine being required," Cardona said during a National Press Foundation event on Wednesday.

This marks a shift from Cardona's comments as recently as this past weekend on CBS' "Face the Nation," when he urged teachers to get their shots voluntarily but didn't say he would back a mandate.

A growing number of cities, including Denver and San Jose, California, are requiring all teachers and school staff members to get their vaccines before students return to school. And on Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that California would require all teachers to be vaccinated or submit weekly COVID-19 testing results, with Newsom saying "this is the right thing to do."

"And to address the number one anxiety that parents like myself have - I have four young children - and that is knowing that the schools are doing everything in their power to keep our kids safe, to keep our kids healthy," Newsom added.

People across the US have been refusing to get vaccinated for numerous unscientific reasons, including a false belief that it can make a person magnetic.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has taken extreme positions against some public-health measures ahead of school reopenings, such as signing an order that would strip funding from schools that required mask-wearing and another that banned vaccine passports in the state.

This week, DeSantis vowed to withhold the salaries of school-board members who flouted his mask-mandate ban, and a Broward County school official responded by telling the governor to "bring it." President Joe Biden told the press he was looking into getting money to affected Floridian educators, and the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, criticized DeSantis from the White House briefing room.

Cardona stressed that the vaccine was safe and added that those reluctant to get their shots might change their mind when the Food and Drug Administration formally approved them, which is expected to happen soon.

"I wouldn't have gotten the vaccine or had my children get it if I questioned whether or not it was safe," Cardona said.