The request for a vaccine mandate--especially one for school children--should be denied for numerous reasons.  First,  the vaccine carries the risk of serious side effects.   As of this writing, there are at least 216 reports of life threatening adverse reactions to Pfizer's vaccine for those ages 6-17 that have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) along with approximately 20 deaths in that same age group.  Those life threatening reactions include myocarditis, blood clots, and appendicitis.  Those 236 incidents occurred within the first five months that the vaccine has been in use for those 12-15. See United States Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control / Food and Drug Administration, VAERS 1990 - 10/08/2021, CDC WONDER On-line Database.  Far from being mere unconfirmed reports, the FDA itself has acknowledged the risk of myocarditis and other forms of heart  inflammation, deciding that a warning for that risk must be put on materials provided with the vaccine.  See https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-june-25-2021; see also https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2783052 (study of myocarditis adverse events); Pfizer Application for Authorization of Booster Shots, https://www.fda.gov/media/152176/download  at 7 (describing "serious risks" of myocarditis and pericarditis associated with the vaccine).  In stark contrast to this mere five months of data, for the last 21 years, the VAERS database contains only 39 total reports of life threatening adverse events or deaths from the seasonal flu vaccine for anyone age 17 and under.  See United States Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control / Food and Drug Administration, VAERS 1990 - 10/08/2021, CDC WONDER On-line Database. 

            Second, the risk Covid poses to children is low.  While it is the case that children have died from Covid, and every loss of a child is a tragedy, the Board must place this risk in context.  Kids are more at risk of dying in car accidents.  And they are more at risk from the flu.  See "Kids, Covid, and Delta: A Guide to Help Parents,"  N.Y. Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/18/briefing/kids-covid-and-delta.html.  Yet, the flu vaccine is not mandated for school-age children nor have the measures petitioner laments been implemented in response to the flu.  Additionally, as noted above, the flu vaccine does not pose anywhere near the risk to children that the Pfizer vaccine does.  Moreover, schools have lower rates of transmission of Covid than the community at large, making a school-based mandate particularly unnecessary.  See, .e.g., https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/01/three-studies-highlight-low-covid-risk-person-school.  Far from "irrational," parents are right to weigh the risks of the vaccine against the risks of Covid itself and conclude that the vaccine is not a risk worth taking.  Indeed, no less than Britain's vaccine advisors, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, declined to recommend the vaccine for those 12-15 on the ground that the risks of getting Covid did not outweigh the risks from the vaccine itself.  See https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-advisers-decide-against-covid-vaccines-healthy-12-15-year-olds-2021-09-03/.

            Third, we do not know the long term consequences of the Pfizer vaccine or of the any Covid vaccines for anyone.  This is impossible to know given the newness of these vaccines.  Anyone who claims otherwise is not acting as a scientist but as a soothsayer and should be disregarded. 

            Fourth, this vaccine is not like the vaccinations that are required for school entrance.  Those vaccinations are for serious illnesses that are a particular threat to children.  See, e.g., https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diphtheria/symptoms-causes/syc-20351897 (explaining that "[e]ven with treatment, diphtheria can be deadly, especially in children"); https://www.history.com/news/measles-vaccine-disease (noting, e.g., that  "[i]n 1916, 12,000 people died of measles, and three out of four deaths were children under 5 years old.").  Indeed, those illnesses used to result in numerous deaths in children as well as long term consequences such as infertility.  See, e.g., https://www.historyofvaccines.org/timeline/diphtheria (diptheria had a death rate of 5-10 percent in school-age children); https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/mumps/symptoms-causes/syc-20375361 (complications from mumps can include hearing loss and sterility).  By contrast, controlling for co-morbidities, Covid has a death rate of zero for children.  See https://www.wsj.com/articles/cdc-covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-side-effects-hospitalization-kids-11626706868. 

            Fifth, the rush to mandate vaccinations wholly ignores the immunity conferred by actual infection.  That immunity appears to be more durable than the vaccines.  See, e.g., https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-once-confers-much-greater-immunity-vaccine-vaccination-remains-vital ("The newly released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than never-infected, vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19."); https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-27/previous-covid-prevents-delta-infection-better-than-pfizer-shot ("People who recovered from a bout of Covid-19 during one of the earlier waves of the pandemic appear to have a lower risk of contracting the delta variant than those who got two doses of the vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE.").  With so many people infected with Covid, vaccination mandates are unnecessary to reach herd immunity.

            Sixth, the best that can be said about this petition is that it is horribly premature.  Pfizer has yet to submit its application for full approval of the vaccination for 12-15 year-olds.   As for children 5-11, a vaccine has yet to receive even Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA, let alone full authorization.  Moreover, the serious adverse reactions discussed above did not surface during Pfizer's trial on children 12-15; they surfaced only in the months following the grant of the Emergency Use Authorization.  See https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/reactogenicity.html.  And, while Pfizer claims the vaccine is well-tolerated in those 5-11, it does not and cannot claim that the vaccine prevents infection.  Instead, it has asked the FDA simply to look at antibody levels in its Emergency Use Authorization application.  See https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-positive-topline-results.  This is because even in the placebo group too few children even got Covid, rendering the study inconclusive concerning the ultimate efficacy of the vaccine.  See also https://www.wsj.com/articles/pfizer-asks-fda-to-approve-covid-19-vaccine-in-young-children-11633610319 ("The companies haven't been to say yet how well the shot protects against Covid-19 because too few  young subjects in the study have become sick to compare rates between children who got a vaccine and those who got a placebo.").  The Board should reject this petition for prematurity alone. 

            In all events, under no circumstances can the Commonwealth impose a vaccine mandate that includes a medical exemption without also including a religious exemption, as petitioner has requested.  Under Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 141 S.Ct. 1868  (2021), such a mandate would run afoul of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.  Moreover, petitioner's request to exclude such an exemption--seemingly calling those individuals "irrational"--smacks of religious animus of the kind that the Supreme Court of the United States rejected in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado, 138 S.Ct. 1719 (2018).  And, of course, any action by this Board must comply with the Commonwealth's own protections of religious liberties.

            Petitioner offers nothing of substance in support of her petition.  That alone warrants rejecting it.  The burden ought to rest on those requesting government action to come forward with evidence supporting that action. 

             Indeed, instead of evidence of the necessity of a vaccine mandate, petitioner merely complains about the policies that have been implemented to mitigate Covid.   It appears that she believes that these will all go away if only everyone was vaccinated.  The unspoken premise of her belief seems to be that once everyone is vaccinated there will be no spread of Covid and it can be eradicated.  She presents no evidence showing this.  Nor could she. 

            Covid is a virus that has mutated and will continue to mutate.  Vaccinated individuals can still be infected by the virus and they can still spread it.  This is why in Israel, which has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, approximately 60 percent of the individuals hospitalized with Covid's delta variant were vaccinated individuals.  See, e.g., https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/nearly-60-of-hospitalized-covid-19-patients-in-israel-fully-vaccinated-study-finds.html.  Similarly, in Great Britain during its most recent delta wave 40 percent of those hospitalized were fully vaccinated.  See https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2021/07/22/among-fully-vaccinated-breakthrough-covid-19-infections-are-more-common-than-previously-thought-does-it-matter.  The best that can be said for the vaccine is that it lessens the seriousness of an infection and it may sometimes prevent infection.  But that is hardly an argument for mandating the vaccine.   Indeed, many experts are now saying that virtually everyone will eventually get Covid--vaccinated or not.  See https://www.ocregister.com/2021/10/03/vaccinated-or-not-everyone-is-likely-to-get-covid-19-at-some-point-many-experts-say/.   At the end of the day then, the real reason for a mandate of this kind--the prevention of spread--simply cannot be accomplished. 

      With nothing of substance to offer, petitioner resorts to name calling, referring to those who might oppose her petition as "irrational."  Such ad hominem attacks cannot be the basis of Board action.  But in no event are they warranted for, as discussed above, far from being irrational, parents have a right to be concerned:  there are serious side effects to this vaccine and there is much still to learn about it.  The Board should reject the petition.