U.S. teachers' union shifts stance to back vaccine mandate as COVID surges

Aug 8 (Reuters) - COVID-19 vaccinations should be required for U.S. teachers to protect students who are too young to be inoculated, the head of the nation's second-largest teachers' union said on Sunday, shifting course to back mandated shots as more children fall ill.

"The circumstances have changed," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told NBC News' "Meet the Press" program. "It weighs really heavily on me that kids under 12 can't get vaccinated."

"I felt the need ... to stand up and say this as a matter of personal conscience," she said.

The number of children hospitalized with COVID is rising across the country, a trend health experts attribute to the Delta variant being more likely to infect children than the original Alpha strain.

Almost 90% of educators and school staff are vaccinated, according to a White House statement echoed by Weingarten in other television interviews last week.

A growing number of companies and state governments are mandating COVID-19 vaccinations. United Airlines (UAL.O), meatpacker Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) are requiring employees get vaccinated, moves that experts said were legal but could raise labor tensions in unionized workplaces. read more

California, New York and Virginia are also requiring all state employees to get inoculated, and New Jersey is requiring some workers in health care to take the vaccine. ...