Childhood vaccine protesters raise concerns in COVID battle
The focus at the state Capitol Tuesday was on traditional vaccines for school-aged children. But the thousands of adults who showed up to protest mandatory inoculations for these children comprise a key bloc in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
It was nearly impossible to find people among the crowd of 4,000 who said they would be getting any of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Heidi Andrejczyk, of Southbury, a mother of five children whom she home-schools, said while the issue does not directly affect her, “I feel a responsibility to be here.”
Pushing a stroller with a box of crackers propped on top, Andrejczyk said it’s the government “overreach” that bothers her.
“The people here believe in freedom, which is what America should stand for,” she said.
Andrejczyk does not plan to get the COVID-19 vaccine, herself, and said she has not received any vaccine since about 2005 when she worked as a flight attendant and was required to get inoculations due to traveling to some international
locations. Her kids are also not vaccinated, she said.
As Connecticut continues with its vaccine rollout amid waning demand, the antivaccine movement poses a threat to its goal of herd immunity, public health experts say.
“Vaccine hesitancy is a growing program globally as well as locally,” said Linda Niccolai, an expert in vaccinations and vaccination policy at the Yale School of Public Health. “Trends over the past several years of people refusing or declining vaccines are increasing.”
While hard to pin down to an exact number, experts estimate at least 80 percent of the population needs to be fully vaccinated or naturally immune to reach herd immunity. At this point, 66 percent of Connecticut’s adult population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine — but that’s only 54 percent of the entire state, as children are not authorized to take the new inoculations.
Gov. Ned Lamont intends to sign the bill, which eliminates religious exemptions for childhood vaccines as of 2022 but allows students already in Connecticut schools to remain there.
He is hoping Connecticut’s history of high vaccination rates for other vaccines will translate to the coronavirus pandemic. He joked during his coronavirus briefing Monday that he was going to send one of the state’s mobile vaccine vans to Tuesday’s rally.
“I think people here in Connecticut broadly understand that the vaccinations in our state and around this country have been incredibly safe, incredibly effective,” Lamont said.
The governor has said he opposes state-ordered, mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations. But some private organizations including universities are imposing the rule.
And the people at the forefront of the vaccine rollout in Connecticut will have to contend with those who are unlikely to budge on their decision not to get vaccinated, which for many is based on a desire for the government to stay out of their business.
“Everybody should have a choice in what’s injected into our bodies. I don’t believe the government should try to control or mandate anything,” said 28-year-old Callie Rosas of Hartford, who held a sign that said, “We elected you to serve us! Not control us!!”
Rosas said she had an adverse reaction to the human papillomavirus vaccine when she was 15 and has not received an inoculation since.
Niccolai, who supports the religious exemption bill and serves as a scientific advisor to Merck and Moderna, one of the manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccines, said those who outright refuse all vaccines represent a small percentage of the overall population, less than 5 percent.
“One of the reasons for vaccine hesitancy and people refusing vaccines, in many ways, is that vaccines have been victims of their own success,” Niccolai said.
Take infectious diseases such as polio, eliminated from the U.S. People don’t “see it” anymore so they might not realize benefits of vaccines, she said.
She estimated that about 20 percent to 30 percent of the population, most of those who have not been vaccinated yet, are in a middle position. They’re hesitant. They have questions and concerns and are awaiting further safety studies or need to hear about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine from a trusted member of their community.
“We have not maxed out,” she said. “But the hard work lies ahead.”
The focus at the state Capitol Tuesday was on traditional vaccines for school-aged children. But the thousands of adults who showed up to protest mandatory incoculations for these children comprise a key bloc in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
It was nearly impossible to find people among the crowd of 4,000 who said they would be getting any of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Heidi Andrejczyk, of Southbury, a mother of five children whom she homeschools, said while the issue does not directly affect her, “I feel a responsibility to be here.”
Pushing a stroller with a box of crackers propped on top, Andrejczyk said it’s the government “overreach” that bothers her.
“The people here believe in freedom, which is what America should stand for,” she said.
Andrejczyk does not plan to get the COVID-19 vaccine, herself, and said she has not received any vaccine since about 2005 when she worked as a flight attendant and was required to get inoculations due to traveling to some international locations. Her kids are also not vaccinated, she said.
As Connecticut continues with its vaccine rollout amid waning demand, the antivaccine movement poses a threat to its goal of herd immunity, public health experts say.
“Vaccine hesitancy is a growing program globally as well as locally,” said Linda Niccolai, an expert in vaccinations and vaccination policy at the Yale School of Public Health. “Trends over the past several years of people refusing or declining vaccines are increasing.”
While hard to pin down to an exact number, experts estimate at least 80 percent of the population needs to be fully vaccinated or naturally immune to reach herd immunity. At this point, 66 percent of Connecticut’s adult population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine — but that’s only 54 percent of the entire state, as children are not authorized to take the new inoculations.
Gov. Ned Lamont intends to sign the bill, which eliminates religious exemptions for childhood vaccines as of 2022 but allows students already in Connecticut schools to remain there.
He is hoping Connecticut’s history of high vaccination rates for other vaccines will translate to the coronavirus pandemic. He joked during his coronavirus briefing Monday that he was going to send one of the state’s mobile vaccine vans to Tuesday’s rally.
“I think people here in Connecticut broadly understand that the vaccinations in our state and around this country have been incredibly safe, incredibly effective,” Lamont said.
The governor has said he opposes state-ordered, mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations. But some private organizations including universities are imposing the rule.
And the people at the forefront of the vaccine rollout in Connecticut will have to contend with those who are unlikely to budge on their decision not to get vaccinated, which for many is based on a desire for the government to stay out of their business.
“Everybody should have a choice in what’s injected into our bodies. I don’t believe the government should try to control or mandate anything,” said 28-year-old Callie Rosas of Hartford, who held a sign that said, “We elected you to serve us! Not control us!!”
Rosas said she had an adverse reaction to the human papillomavirus vaccine and has not received an inoculation since.
Niccolai, who supports the religious exemption bill and serves as a scientific advisor to Merck and Moderna, one of the manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccines, said those who outright refuse all vaccines represent a small percentage of the overall population, less than 5 percent.
“One of the reasons for vaccine hesitancy and people refusing vaccines, in many ways, is that vaccines have been victims of their own success,” Niccolai said.
Take infectious diseases such as polio, eliminated from the U.S. People don’t “see it” anymore so they might not realize benefits of vaccines, she said.
She estimated that about 20 percent to 30 percent of the population, most of thise who have not been vaccinated yet, are in a middle position. They’re hesitant. They have questions and concerns and are awaiting further safety studies or need to hear about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine from a trusted member of their community.
“We have not maxed out,” she said. But the hard work lies ahead.”
Many in the crowd traveled from other states such as New York, Massachusetts, and as far away as Indiana, according to one of the organizers of the rally.
Richard Struthers and Rosemary Lewando of Putney, Vermont, self-proclaimed “avid Bernie Sanders supporters,” carried a “Progressives for Parental Choice” sign. They said politicians and public health officials are catering to Big Pharma in their response to the pandemic, with the vaccines seen as holy grail without consideration to other alternatives.
“Too many on the left are all ‘rah, rah, rah, let’s get vaccinated. When are you getting your vaccine?’ No one is questioning anything,” Struthers said.
They believe that COVID-19 posed a public health threat, but the response is “just to be in fear or get the vaccine,” Struthers said.
Kevin Dieckhaus, chief of the division of infectious diseases with UConn Health, who testified in favor of the bill ending religious exemptions when it came up in February, 2020, recalled looking out at the crowd of anti-vaccine demonstrators. He wondered whether COVID-19, then in its early days, would become a big issue and how it would affect the anti-vaccine movement.
“It’s concerning,” Dieckhaus said Tuesday.
While the percentage of people in Connecticut who will outright refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine is not large, they could have an outsized impact.
“Certainly with the antivaccine movement, there will be sub-populations in Connecticut that will have lower vaccination rates and those can serve as incubators for whatever illness we’re talking about whether it be measles or Covid,” he said. “That flare can then bleed into the general population.”