JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A pediatric professor said getting rid of the vaccine mandate could be devastating.
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Some Jacksonville parents expressed their opinions on the mandates ending.
Chastyne Dominguez believes vaccines aren’t good for people. She said her children are vaccinated, but only because they were required to for school purposes, and that shouldn’t be the case.
“I feel like we get sicker every time we take a vaccine...so I feel like it doesn’t work,” Dominguez said.
Her opinion differs from Brooklyn Oliver-Condrey, who thinks they’re important.
Oliver-Condrey is a stay-at-home mom who is a nurse. She helped run drive-thru COVID clinics and said vaccines can help save lives.
“I am all for choice if you don’t want to do it, I’m not going to sit here and twist your arm and tell you, you have to but we are trying to protect our most vulnerable population,” Oliver-Condrey said.
Former Duval County Health Department leader and current professor of pediatrics at UF Jacksonville Dr. Jeffery Goldhagen, said getting rid of this mandate could be devastating.
“It completely ignores what we know about vaccine-preventable diseases,” Goldhagen said.
He said getting rid of vaccines could lead to more outbreaks of diseases that were almost eradicated and jeopardize herd immunity.
“We’ve already had outbreaks across the country...this will be like putting gasoline on a fire. It will expand, explode, we will see children sick and hospitalized and we’ll see them die,” Goldhagen said.
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He said all of that could be prevented by not getting rid of the vaccine mandate.
News4JAX reached out to the school districts of Duval, Clay, Nassau and St. Johns Counties, asking if they’ve started having conversations about the mandate ending.
St. Johns County school district said, “We have not had conversations about any impacts to our district.
Clay County said, “We have not started conversations and will continue to follow F.S.1003.22 until we receive a different directive.
This story will be updated when the other two districts respond.