The School Protests are Not Anti-Vax, They are Anti-Mandate

WARNING: Actual Journalism Ahead!

On October 18th, thousands of protesters descended on the steps of the capitol in Sacramento, California for an event called “Our Children, Our Choice” to protest Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent order mandating Covid vaccination for all school children in California once they are approved by the FDA.

Gavin Newsom Eradicates Informed Consent

In recent weeks, multiple smaller rallies were held across the state protesting Newsom’s order, and Monday’s rally coincided with calls for a statewide school student walkout. Media coverage of these events has been mixed, but the national media always seems to shade these discussions a certain way. As an example, a recent CNN article describes the current turmoil by suggesting that Schools are new battleground in war of disinformation over Covid-19 vaccines.

The article describes the situation at schools as, “anti-vax campaigners are now taking their protests to the school gates.”

Another CNN article describes “Anti-Vaxxers” as using the same tactics as cults:

If you take in enough of this media, this viewpoint becomes clear: those opposed to mandating the Covid vaccine are all ignorant rubes who oppose vaccines in general. They don’t know the first thing about Covid, and if we don’t do something about them soon they’ll get us all killed.

Knowing this, and knowing that I couldn’t rely on the media to inform me as to what the protests at the Capitol truly stood for, I decided to head there myself, talk to some actual people on the ground, and see what they had to say. That’s right:

WARNING: Actual Journalism Ahead!...

I didn’t know how willing folks would be to answer my questions, but what I found, nearly unanimously, was a group of people eager to have their voices heard, most who had never been to a protest before, and who don’t believe their viewpoint is being correctly portrayed by the media at large. What follows are a number of examples:

Debbie from Roseville, CA

Debbie is a member of Moms for Liberty and helps run their local Placer County chapter. She has twin 10 year old boys and an 8 year old boy. She’s against giving the Covid vaccine to her boys because she knows the risks to them from Covid is low, and she’s concerned about the very real risks of Myocarditis, particularly of concern for young males. She wants people to understand that the vaccines can cause injuries and even deaths and for people at such low risk from Covid this can outweigh any benefits of vaccination.

But Debbie is not Anti-Vaccine, she’s gotten the Covid vaccine for herself, and she and all her boys have had all the standard scheduled childhood vaccinations. She wore a shirt reading “I Don’t Co-Parent with the Government”. For her, protesting today was about restoring her choice, she was not Anti-Vaccine, she was Anti-Mandate.

This was the theme I took away from my visit to the protest. Nearly all the people I spoke to were not against standard vaccinations for themselves or their children. If they were anti-vaccine at all it was specifically for the Covid shot. Many felt it had not been tested and reviewed for long enough, they already had Covid so saw no need in taking the shot, or simply felt their risk from Covid was low enough that the shot wasn't warranted at this time.

Tara from Stockton, CA

Tara was an example of this. She won’t get the Covid shot because her and her family have already had Covid, so she sees no point. She understands that the natural immunity that comes from prior infection is robust and long lasting. That said, she and all her children have all had the full schedule of standard vaccines. She simply believes that the decision for the Covid vaccine should be left to parents, and her 13 year old son would not be getting it even if it means leaving the state. She’s Anti-Mandate.

Ora from Woodland, CA

Ora is a retired nurse, who was vaccinated for Covid early in the year. She has grandchildren between the ages of 4 and 11 who go to school throughout the Sacramento area. She was adamantly against the Covid vaccine for her grandchildren because she felt there simply has not been enough time during which the vaccines have been available to truly know if the benefits outweigh the risks, particularly for children where the risks from Covid are vanishingly small.

She gave examples from her experience as a nurse treating patients with side-effects from formerly FDA approved drugs, such as the off-label use of Fen-Phen as a diet pill, which was pulled from the market due to significant risks of pulmonary hypertension. She treated patients how eventually died from the side effects and it imprinted on her the need for caution when it comes to new medicines. Again all her grandchildren have previously been vaccinated with all the scheduled vaccines, but she feels it should be the parents right to wait or forgo the Covid shot, and she was also actively protesting against the mandating of vaccines for the general public which will create as she called it, “Vaccine Apartheid”.

A couple other examples included:

Nicholette - Roseville, CA

Nicholette is a realtor from Roseville, with a 12 year old son. She hasn’t been vaccinated for Covid because, as she sees it, the survival rate is so high for someone of her age and health she doesn’t think it is warranted. And while she doesn’t want her son to get the Covid shot either, he has had all the scheduled vaccine shots when he entered school. She was strongly against mandates and said she was prepared to homeschool her son, and even quit her job in real estate if mandates came into effect.

Mika from Modesto, CA

Mika lives in Modesto, but is a police officer who works in the San Francisco Bay Area. He says he’s never seen anything like the way liberties are currently being trampled in America right now. This is very conflicting for him, since as a police officer his job is to not speak out or ask questions, but simply enforce the rules. He says he is at the point where he can’t keep his mouth shut.

He and his two teenage children have had all the shots they “needed” for school. He mentioned they don’t get the Flu shot since it’s not a vaccine that “works”. He sees the Covid shot more like the Flu shot, why force people to get it if you can still catch and spread the disease? He’s already home schooled his children the last two years, and says if he had to he’d leave the State.

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So all of these parents have not had issues with the standard vaccines like MMR, but have a real issue with the Covid shot being thrust upon them. On the other hand our leaders see no difference between the two. As a spokesman for Newson states:

“The state already requires that students are vaccinated against a range of viruses such as measles, mumps, and rubella – there’s no reason why we wouldn’t do the same for COVID-19. This is about protecting our children and school staff and keeping them safely in the classroom. Vaccines work and are how we end the pandemic– full stop”

As I’ve explained before, there are plenty of reasons why the comparison between MMR and the Covid shot does not hold water. One is a well tested drug, with little to no side effects, which offers lifelong immunity against harmful childhood diseases. The other is a brand new drug with harsh side effects, undetermined levels of adverse reactions, and which offers short-duration waning immunity against a disease which is very mild in children. There is no comparison, and to try and force one will likely cause more harm than good.

Child Covid Vaccine Mandates Are Coming

Even human weathervane Scott Gottlieb can see that these mandates take what should be a health decision between a parent and their pediatrician and turn it into something divisive and political. On one of his recent routine stops on Face the Nation he warned:

“The downside of this mandate in terms of hardening positions and taking something that was subtly political and making it overtly political could outweigh any of the benefits that we hope to achieve."

The fact is, not everyone at the rally was in favor of the standard schedule of vaccines for their children. By mandating the Covid vaccines at this time, it’s forcing concerned parents to make common cause with the much smaller group of people who are opposed to all vaccines. As an example:

Marina from Roseville, CA

Marina immigrated from Belarus as a child in the early 1990’s, and she seemed very suspicious of the government, as might be expected of an immigrant from the former Soviet Union. As she put it, “I missed out on Stalin, but ended up with Newsom instead”... She is decidedly anti-vaccine. While she received vaccines as a child, none of her five children have. She won’t be getting the Covid shot and neither will her children. I don’t agree with her decisions, but I do support her right to make them.

Interestingly, Newsom’s mandate will not directly affect her since she already homeschools her children. She was at the protest to show general support for what she believes to be a fundamental American right.

The vast majority of the parents at the protest are not like her though, their children have been going to public schools, and following the state’s public health rules around vaccination for years. It’s only the forcing of the Covid vaccines onto their children which has them objecting. We can only hope this objection to the Covid shot will not lead more of parents towards abandoning trust in vaccines in general. I’m afraid it might…

For most of the parents I talked to, if forced to, they may soon join Marina in homeschooling their children. Every parent I talked to had made serious plans to homeschool their children if they needed to, or even leave the state if it came to that. If this does occur, the impact to our schools will be immense.

Lacy from Red Bluff, CA

Lacy, a high school teacher in Red Bluff had first hand insight into this issue. She runs her school’s agricultural program with three other teachers, all who might soon lose their jobs over the mandates. While Lacy is vaccinated for Covid, she says the school district has over 60 teachers and staff who aren’t and will leave if it is mandated. While she supports their right not to take the shot, she worries that if the mandates come into effect the public school system will never be the same. She says she won’t run the Ag program on her own, she'd rather quit.

This is a common worry across the state, particularly in smaller rural school districts. In Modoc county, a district may be forced to close since nearly half the staff may quit if the covid vaccines are mandated. Lacy has two elementary school aged children and plans to quit work and homeschool them if they are mandated to take the vaccine.

Overall, one thing was clear to me walking this protest: the media narrative that this is just a gaggle of ignorant Anti-Vaxxers does not stand up to closer scrutiny. The people I spoke to were very knowledgeable about Covid, much more so than your typical airbrushed newsreader on TV. They understand the risks from Covid vary dramatically by age. Of the parents who hadn’t gotten the Covid shot, all were younger and in good health, whereas the more elderly parents and grandparents had gotten vaccinated. But none of them want this for their children, not when the risks from Covid are so low, and the risk of the vaccine still has so many unknowns. They don’t mind if others feel differently, but they want that choice.

It’s also clear that these people have had enough, and appear serious is their resolve not to comply with mandates. They may be the more passionate and motivated than the general public, but they likely represent tens of thousands of parents across the state. The damage these mandates will cause to our school systems and our society if enacted will be tremendous, we should heed the warning and abandon the endeavour.

It’s not about Vaccines, it’s about Mandates.

Anyway 0 and 2…