Anti-vaccine leaflet objects to Sacramento school mandate. Does it target Latino families?
Someone is pushing back against the Sacramento City Unified School District’s COVID-19 mandate.
Leaflets in both English and Spanish were distributed on cars in Sacramento last weekend urging parents to reconsider vaccinating their children against COVID-19. And some parents feel they are targeting the Latino community.
“Parents you have a choice!” read the yellow leaflet. “You do not have to get the COVID-19 vaccine for your child ...You can choose the personal beliefs exemption for your child.”
Sacramento City Unified mandated that students 12 years and older be vaccinated by Nov. 30. (The district has not set a deadline for students ages 5-11 to be vaccinated.)
Sacramento City Unified schools have been hosting weekly vaccination clinics at comprehensive high schools for anyone 12 and older, providing tens of thousands of vaccines, in partnership with Dignity Health. The COVID vaccines have been found to be highly effective at preventing infection and “helps protect adults and children ages 5 years and older from getting sick or severely ill with COVID-19 and helps protect those around them,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A person who responded to an email sent to the address on the leaflet declined to be identified.
What are personal and religious exemptions?
While California eliminated personal belief exemptions for vaccines in 2015 for students attending K-12 schools, COVID-19 vaccinations are not on that list.
Like many public institutions, Sacramento City Unified is allowing for medical, personal and religious exemptions for the vaccine. The process can vary from school district to school district. The form requires a health care provider to include physical condition or other circumstances as reasons they do not recommend immunization.
The district provides alternatives to families who to not wish to have their children vaccinated, allowing parents and guardians to apply for a personal or religious exemption. While a health care provider and parent must sign off on a personal exemption, a simple checkbox and parent signature is needed for religious beliefs exemption.
Most major religious leaders and organizations have not spoken out against the COVID-19 vaccine. And some groups that are typically opposed to vaccines are open to the coronavirus vaccine.
But that hasn’t prevented many students and their families from stating that their personal beliefs prohibit them from being vaccinated. Someone could be the sole follower of a faith and apply for a religious exemption. And sometimes the beliefs may sound unreasonable to others.
When a data breach occurred at California State University, Chico, exposing names of students who filed for vaccine exemptions, applications showed that many students stated the vaccine violated their faith because they contained aborted fetal cells.
Scientists have clarified that none of the COVID-19 vaccines contain such cells. However, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was aided by a group of cells replicated in a lab from the retinal cells of an 18-week-old fetus aborted in 1985, McClatchy News reported. Those cells are not taken from abortions and are “thousands of times removed from the original fetus cells,” according to Reuters.
Misinformation translates to vaccine hesitancy
District officials told The Sacramento Bee they continue to see vaccination hesitancy. The district’s vaccination rates somewhat mirror Sacramento County — Latino and Black residents are among the least vaccinated.
Public health officials expressed concern that adolescents have returned to in-person learning, but vaccination rates continue to lag in some parts in the county.
Teresa Hernandez, a vocal parent in Sacramento’s Latino community, called the flyer “propaganda” that is targeting Latino parents.
“I feel like they are using the Latino community,” Hernandez, 58, said in Spanish. “I would tell parents to go to their principal to verify this information.”
Hernandez, of Sacramento, said she has raised four children in the Sacramento City Unified School District. In Latino communities, she added that the Catholic Church has encouraged members to get their COVID-19 doses.
Rachel Rios, executive director of La Familia Counseling Center, hasn’t heard of Latino parents seeking religious exemptions, but said her organization has been encouraging Latino parents to get their children inoculated.
Throughout the pandemic, Spanish-language misinformation about vaccines targeted toward Latinos have run rampant on social media, according to Rios.
Tech companies such as Facebook have also struggled to stem vaccine misinformation in foreign languages.To halt misinformation, her group is launching an informational campaign to answer parents’ questions about vaccines.
“There’s been vaccine hesitancy and so what we have been working on is trying to create that confidence within all families … especially Latino families,” she said.
In California, Latino children account for nearly half of the state’s K-12 public school students. In Sacramento City Unified School District, 40% of students are Latino, 17% are Asian American, 14% are Black and 18% are white.
Latino kids are also overrepresented among the state’s known COVID-19 cases, according to figures from the California Department of Public Health.
Latino children 17 years old and younger account for about 48% of that age group but make up 60% of known COVID-19 cases and 49% of COVID-related deaths in that age group, statistics show.
“It is super important obviously because we are such a large population and demographic in this area, in our state that we vaccinate ourselves,” Rios said.
Latino workers are more likely to work in conditions where they are exposed to the virus and are more likely to live in multigenerational households, making Latino communities more susceptible to contracting the disease, Rios said.
This story was originally published November 15, 2021 at 5:00 AM.