Senate bills would result in the spreading of infectious diseases
In addition to Senate Substitute for House Bill 2280 which effectively would end all required immunizations for school attendance, Senators are considering two other bills that would prohibit measures to contain the spread of infectious diseases.
Senate Bill 489 strips the Secretary of Health and Environment (the state’s chief medical officer) from implementing any requirement for isolation or quarantine of individuals during an outbreak of an infectious disease. Instead, the Secretary must make recommendations the Senate President and Speaker of the House at the beginning of a legislative session if he/she plans to recommend isolation or quarantine. This report is restricted to only recommending quarantine to protect first responders and health care providers, not the general population - not seniors, not children, not the medically fragile.
The bill goes on to prohibit orders by the Secretary or local health officials that would isolate or quarantine individuals who refuse “vaccination, medical examination, treatment, or testing” until “the individual no longer poses a substantial risk of transmitting the disease or condition to the public.”
Senate Bill 541 prohibits all requirements to wear masks to contain the spread of any infectious diseases and then specifically prohibits schools from requiring students to isolate unless the student is actually diagnosed as ill. If all the members of a student’s household are infected with a contagious disease, the student must be allowed in class unless that student is diagnosed. Incubation periods are specifically ignored.
These three Senate proposals put together simply ensure that in the event of an infectious disease such as COVID-19, there can not be any measures taken to contain the spread of that disease. No required vaccination for any disease; no mask mandates to contain the spread of disease; no quarantine of individuals who refuse to be examined for a disease even if they exhibit all the symptoms of the disease; and no quarantine during the incubation period of a disease.
All three of these bills have been passed by the Senate and are now available for consideration by the House.
Legislative Staff has prepared explainers of each of these bills as passed by the Senate. You can read the specifics of each bill at the following links:
Senate Substitute for House Bill 2280