Anti-vaccination groups have tried to stoke the fear of parents and children by falsely claiming that vaccines are useless and dangerous.
Last week, a small group of protesters demonstrated outside St Thomas More Catholic School in the town of Bladon, near Newcastle, in northeastern England, as children entered the school gate.
In a letter posted on the school’s website, headmaster Jonathan Parkinson said that many students were “deeply disturbed by the way they were treated and the pictures they were shown” and that police were aware of the school’s concerns. was done.
“We would like to reiterate that the role of the school is that of hosting the vaccination team,” he said. “Our priority is the well-being of our students and we are doing our best to support those in distress.”
David Phillips, headteacher at Chilwell School in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, in central England, told the PA news agency last month that he had contacted police after his school received “derogatory and threatening messages” from anti-vaccination campaigners.
The PA reported that students have been given leaflets with propaganda and posters accusing the school of “treating children like experimental animals”.
At the end of last month there were vaccines across the UK for healthy children aged 12 to 15, each offered a single dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Many people will be offered the shot through the vaccination program at their school, with voluntary takeups.
Anti-vax group Outreach Worldwide has posted calls on Instagram for supporters to promote their “informed consent campaign” outside designated schools at designated times. It is not clear how many people have responded.
A more generic post on its Instagram page said: “Stand up for the kids. Roll out peacefully at your local school on injection day.” Others show pictures of placards with messages “Mums Against Jabbing Children” and “These Vaccines Are Harming Our Teenagers.”
Another campaign group called Lawyers for Liberty posted on Twitter that if it is promoting a COVID-19 vaccination program, it will send “a legal letter” anonymously from a parent to their child’s school. will send, in which the headmaster has been warned. The legal risks of this policy and the school’s responsibilities.”
Speaking in the House of Commons last month, Skills Minister Alex Burgert told lawmakers that anti-vaccination protests outside schools were “totally unacceptable”.
“The level of intimidation of schools and teachers is abhorrent,” he said. “Let me make it very clear to any principal or teacher seeing that, contrary to what has been said to them, the legal obligation lies not with the schools, but with those providing healthcare and vaccinations.”
Union: Anti-vax campaign ‘grossly useless’
With 40,701 positive tests reported on Thursday, the coronavirus infection rate in the UK remains high, although a successful vaccine rollout means the rate of hospitalizations and deaths with Covid-19 is much lower than at their peak. Is.
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show a sharp increase in positive Covid-19 tests among school children aged 7 to 11, ie 11 to 16 years old, as schools went back in early September.
Union leaders have warned of disruption in education resulting from continued absenteeism related to COVID-19.
“We are hearing from schools where 10 percent or more students are absent and where staff are also off work because of the virus,” Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said in a statement on Tuesday. “Teaching and learning is very difficult in these conditions and it is clear that the educational disruption of the last 18 months is far from over.”
The figures emphasize the importance of a vaccination schedule for 12 to 15-year-olds, Barton said. “The anti-vaccination campaign that is taking place is extremely unhelpful and we urge parents and students who have any concerns as a result of this campaign to seek reliable and authoritative sources of information.”
Britain’s Education Secretary Nadim Jahvi warned on Thursday that children may have to wear masks again in class if the COVID-19 situation worsens significantly.
Jahvi told Sky News, “Attendance has increased, the last set of figures I saw was around 90%, which obviously will fluctuate depending on the infection rate. But my priority is to protect education, Those schools have to be kept open.” The government’s plan has “a lot of contingencies, including masks,” he said.
The government last month announced a decision to expand immunization to children aged 12 to 15, saying it was hoped the measure would protect children from catching Covid-19, reduce transmission in schools and help prevent their infection. Will limit disruption in education.
England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty insisted the rollout was a “proposition” rather than a necessity, and said the benefits and risks of evaluating vaccination for 12 to 15-year-olds should be addressed to both children “fairly and properly.” “Should be told. Parents.
“Children, youth and their parents should be supported in the decisions they make, no stigma should be placed on people for whether or not to accept vaccination. This is really important,” he said. said.
‘Very cowardly people’
Vaccine disinformation efforts targeting children and their parents are not isolated in the UK.
In late August, two posters linking COVID-19 vaccination with cooperation during World War II were pasted on a historical information panel near a school in the city of Croc in the Creuse department in central France.
The Mayor of Croc, Jean-Luc Pieron, told CNN that the posters were under investigation.
He said of the incident, “I thought I was dealing with too many cowardly people to put up those posters, that’s all.”
In the northern Italian city of Forli, anti-vax activists who spray graffiti outside local schools in recent days also drew a link between COVID-19 and measures brought in to limit the spread of Nazism.
Images posted on the Facebook page of the local branch of the centre-left Democratic Party on October 1 showed graffiti saying: “Wax kill. Save the children. No masks they are harmful” and “No wax. No. Nazipas.”
“These episodes are showing more and more how the opposition to vaccines is shaping up to be the real anarchist current, which is increasingly devoted to violence and illegality,” the Democratic Party branch said in a post accompanying the images.
“What is more serious is that these decidedly violent writings were done in front of schools, involving children who are often exploited in the ‘no wax’ protest.”
The party described the action as “shameful” because it harms those “we should protect the most children and young people, trying to create fear and insecurity in families.”
Local Democratic Party leader Daniele Valbonci posted on Facebook the following day that the party’s initial post was subject to massive and indiscriminate bombardment by social profiles due to the “No Wax” skyline, adding that “over 1,300 messages had been sent to the United States.” has been blocked”.
“Once again, we reject the unacceptable association that ‘no vax’ (activists) create between themselves and the victims of Nazi-fascism,” he said. “These people continue to demonstrate that they know neither the history nor the meaning of freedom.”
CNN’s Nicola Rutolo, Livia Borghese and Meredith Rulman contributed to this report.
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