I strongly oppose forced COVID vaccinations. It is unconstitutional, unlawful, and unethical. We should be focusing on early treatment vs forced vaccination. The vaccines are still under emergency use authorization without express informed consent. The EUA explicitly states that anyone to whom an EUA product is administered must be informed of the option to refuse the product, as well as the risks and benefits of receiving it. Although the FDA has purportedly approved one of the mRNA vaccines, in reality, the approved vaccine, the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine, is not available or in widespread circulation in the United States. Instead, the only COVID-19 vaccines being offered to members of the public in Virginia, including students 12 years of age or older, are still under emergency use authorization, including the Pfizer Biontech COVID-19 vaccine product. There is consequently no full FDA approval of any COVID-19 vaccine that is available for students of any age in Virginia. In addition, all COVID-19 vaccines, including the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine, remain authorized only under emergency use for ages 12-15, and thus no public entity can mandate such an experimental vaccine for students in that age range. If our state legislature cannot mandate these vaccines due to federal EUA law and federal pre-emption issues, clearly the State Board of Virginia cannot unilaterally mandate an experimental use COVID-19 vaccine for its students either.

EUA products are defined by federal law as experimental which means the administration of them is akin to entering one into a medical trial. It is important to point out that there are legal and regulatory requirements that must be adhered to prior to entering a minor into a medical trial. Pointedly, a child cannot by law be entered into a medical trial unless there is a benefit. Even if there is only a minimal risk to children, the regulations require that the parents expressly assent to the entry of their child into a medical trial. If there is a greater than minimal risk, which here there is the greatest risk of death, there must be a direct benefit and the risk must be as favorable as alternative approaches. With an undisputed 99.97% recovery rate for children and existing alternative treatments available, this legal threshold cannot be met.

Finally, it should be noted that under the Federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, all COVID-19 vaccine makers are provided immunity from liability for their products. However, the State Board of Health and any schools attempting to mandate an experimental use vaccine or even an FDA approved vaccine that such school lacks authority to mandate under our Health & Safety code will certainly open themselves up for lawsuits if a student is injured by an unlawfully mandated COVID-19 vaccine.

It is also unclear why anyone believes that mandating a COVID-19 vaccine will do anything to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on school grounds. While many media outlets say “the science is clear – vaccinations are an essential part of protection against COVID-19,” the science is NOT clear at all. Instead, COVID-19 vaccines appear to be failing in significant measures around the globe. Highly vaccinated countries such as Israel and the United Kingdom are showing their own cases rising dramatically, with hospitals filling up with patients who are already fully vaccinated. Even the CDC is warning that boosters may soon be needed for U.S. consumers of these products, as more so-called “breakthrough cases” are discovered. It is unclear how the State Board of Health can be so blindly insistent of the benefits of a vaccine product at the same time numerous health authorities and media outlets around the globe are revealing these products to be unable to stop either transmission, infection, or even hospitalization or death. There is also the possibility that the vaccine products themselves are causing the variants, as numerous scientists have previously warned. As these COVID-19 vaccine products are still in their clinical trial stages, there is still much unknown about their benefits or potential long-term health risks.

Moreover, the delta variant is now alleged to be the dominant variant in Virginia. The CDC has made it clear in recent weeks that vaccinated persons can transmit the delta variant and might even possess higher viral loads than those who were not vaccinated, particularly those who have already naturally recovered from COVID-19. Since none of the vaccine products were ever tested for or intended to prevent infection or transmission, and are not preventing either, choosing to get a COVID-19 vaccine must remain an individual and personal health choice, with individualized risk-benefit assessments.

There is no legitimate public health reason to mandate that healthy children take a product that is still in its experimental clinical trials and that could cause more harm than benefit to this age cohort. The State Board of Health has no place attempting to mandate a product that does not even satisfy a rational basis, let alone a compelling governmental interest, for intruding upon significant Constitutional protections and rights to privacy, due process of law, and equal protection under the law. 

At this point, those who are vaccinated have presumably protected themselves against severe COVID or death. As numerous studies indicate, and public health authorities acknowledge, children are at little risk of developing severe COVID-19. Accordingly, requiring any COVID-19 vaccine, especially among student populations in middle and high school, for a product that does not even prevent transmission to others, is not the answer, and it appears to be an unethical and unscientific way to use children as a shield to protect segments of the adult population who do not actually understand the limitations of these vaccine products, and who have their own option to be vaccinated in any case.     

In conclusion, the State Board of Health lacks any legal authority to bypass our existing state and federal laws and impose a new experimental vaccine as a condition to attending school. Accordingly, I will not support this.