New UC-Berkeley Poll Finds Majority of Californians Support COVID-19 Mask, Vaccine Mandates

According to a new UC-Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) poll, a majority of Californians were found to support COVID-19 mask and vaccine mandates in schools, but with support percentages dropping from polls at the beginning of the school year.

Specifically, 61% of California voters were found to support California’s policy of students, teachers, and staff in K-12 public schools wearing masks while in school this year, with only 37% disapproving. Similarly, 55% of state voters support the vaccine mandate for schoolchildren with 42% disapproving.

IGS officials noted on Thursday that poll respondents indicated that they wanted schools to return to normal or where they had been pre-pandemic. At the same time, however, most also wanted mandates to stay in place as a precaution against anymore outbreaks, especially among children, many of whom remain unvaccinated due to FDA vaccine approval not currently covering those under 5.

“People really want the schools to get back to where they were,” said Mark DiCamillo, the director of the UC-Berkeley IGS Poll. “But the desire to open schools is tempered with these feelings that these precautions should still be in place.”

While the IGS poll, which was conducted in standard polling fashion in early February with a pool of almost 9,000 random voters in the state and a margin of error of two points, it came just before major shifts in policy were announced, including the end of the statewide mask mandate on the 15th and a delay of a state indoor mask mandate end until at least the end of the month.

The poll released Thursday also showed falling levels of support when compared to similar questions posed in polls from the beginning of the school year in August and September. A Spectrum poll in late August found that 81% of Californian voters were in favor of mask mandates in schools, with CBS business mandate-oriented polls around the same time finding a 67% approval rating. While not tied to the IGS poll, the polls have shown a definite reduction of mask mandate supporting Californians. Many analysts noted this on Thursday, saying that support was slipping significantly.

“A lot of school districts have already gotten rid of outdoor mask mandates, including, recently, longtime holdout Los Angeles. And with rollbacks on mandates increasing each day, due in large to political pressure and plummeting COVID-19 rates, it’s no wonder that the number of people supporting mandates is falling,” Conner Griffith explained to the Globe on Thursday. Griffith is a graduate student in New York who is using the comparison of COVID-19 reactions and policies in 5 states through a political for his doctoral thesis. “Some people don’t want to admit support is still so high, while others don’t want to admit support for these mandates is falling faster than they thought. But the reality is that, in pretty much every state, people want normal again after two years of roller coastering numbers of deaths and cases caused by new outbreaks and variants. Some believe vaccines are the key for normal returning, while others believe doing away with the mandates is returning to normal. And we’re kind of doing both to appease everyone. Roll back mandates, but keep the vaccinations as new policy or stick with FDA guidelines. We want safe and we want normal, but there is no pleasing everyone.”

Future polls on COVID-19 masking and vaccine mandates are expected as rapidly changing mandates and policies come into place in the coming months.