Being unvaccinated amid a push for vaccination

Photo by Atrey Desai

Editor’s Note: Katie and Jennifer are pseudonyms used to preserve anonymity.

When junior Katie walked into her first-period class on the first day of school, all she could focus on was what the students around her would think about her vaccination status. One by one, her friends asked her if she had received the COVID-19 vaccine. One by one, she responded no.

Although the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has been available for those who are 16 and older in California since April 15, 2021, Katie has yet to receive her first jab.

Some experts estimate that the country would need to reach 90 percent vaccination to achieve herd immunity, especially against the more contagious Delta variant. Roughly, 75 percent of residents in Santa Clara County are fully vaccinated, with 87 percent of individuals ages 12 or above being vaccinated. In Saratoga itself, 97.3 percent of all eligible recipients are fully vaccinated. 

Although not 100% of students at the school have been vaccinated, the campus hasn’t seen any positive COVID-19 cases among students for the school year through late October. 

The COVID-19 vaccination has been a contentious political issue since the vaccine was made available to the public last December; however, even though minors over the age of 12 do not need parental permission to get vaccinated in the state, some minors are hesitant to receive the vaccine because it would mean defying their parents’ wishes. In the following school year, Katie and other unvaccinated students must be vaccinated to attend in-person school. 

As a minor, Katie is able to get the vaccine without the consent of her father, who is concerned about the COVID-19 vaccination’s long-term effects. At the time of reporting Katie was unaware that she could receive the vaccine without her father’s consent, and responded with surprise. However, she worried about the logistics: She cannot drive and can’t easily go to a vaccination site.

She is also worried about her father’s possible response to her vaccination, thinking that he would revoke many of her privileges as he tried to with her older, vaccinated sister. Katie’s older sister was able to get vaccinated as an adult, but not without angering her father. Her mother is vaccinated both by choice and because her government job requires it.

Katie has had trouble making sense of some of her father’s logic. For example, her father does not allow her to take part in certain activities including going to amusement parks or movie theaters — anything in enclosed or crowded spaces — because she “lacks the protection” against COVID-19 afforded by the vaccine.

When in-person school started in August, Katie found that her classmates were curious to know about each other’s vaccination statuses. Though it was not her personal choice to be unvaccinated, Katie still felt guilty when sharing her status. 

“When everyone was asking each other if they were vaccinated or getting vaccinated, I had to answer with a no, and that sort of made me feel left out,” Katie said. “It was also kind of shameful at one point — it kind of still is, actually.”

Katie said she still feels bad when taking her mask off at school. She understands it’s necessary for her to eat or drink water, but she feels like she is putting others around her at risk, even though all the people she hangs around are vaccinated.

She has told her closest friends about her vaccination status and only discloses it to others when asked. However, she’s found that many people tend to jump to conclusions upon hearing her answer. 

“When they ask why I’m not vaccinated, I always say that I don’t have a choice. Then they think my parents are anti-vaxxers,” Katie said.

In reality, according to Katie, her unvaccinated father does not fall into the typical “anti-vaxxer” archetype; his hesitancy about the COVID-19 vaccine stems from his views on the lack of research on the vaccine’s long-term effects and complications, and he wants to wait to evaluate the vaccine before receiving a dose of it. Katie doesn’t talk to her father much about the vaccine, but her vaccinated older sister constantly argues with him about the subject. 

“I made a deal with my dad that I should be able to get the vaccine a year before it first comes out,” Katie said.

As the pandemic cycles through waves of transmission surges, people are increasingly blaming the unvaccinated. Currently, around 1,200 people die in the U.S. per day of COVID-19, with 92 percent of those dying and 95 percent of those hospitalized being unvaccinated. Recently, the world recorded its 5 millionth COVID death. 

Although Katie knows that she is part of that group often blamed for the continuation of the crisis, she doesn’t feel too guilty about it because she ultimately has little control over her vaccination status. Despite this, she is unable to shield herself from the social pressures of being unvaccinated.

“I feel like my vaccination status is always in the back of people’s minds whenever they see me,” Katie said.

On the other end of the spectrum is Jennifer, a sophomore who is fully vaccinated and has strong negative feelings against those who have remained unvaccinated.

“I feel like it just doesn’t make any sense — statistics show that the unvaccinated are 11 times more likely to die of COVID-19,” Jennifer said. “They are filling up ICU beds in Texas and Florida and most people who are dying of COVID-19 are unvaccinated.” 

Jennifer said that her perspective stems from a heavy emphasis on “statistics and rational reasoning.” She also said that she believes the push for vaccination has become hyper-political rather than evidence-based. 

“Under the Trump administration, vaccination was super contentious, and I think that’s just ironic because he almost died from COVID,” said Jennifer. “I feel like if the vaccine was made under the Clinton administration, a lot more people would already be vaccinated.”

Although the Saratoga community is mostly vaccinated, hindering COVID-19’s likelihood to infect remaining unvaccinated students, Jennifer still believes that all students should be vaccinated, citing that those who are unvaccinated are responsible for the recent pandemic surges.

Jennifer also criticized the school’s COVID-19 policies for being “ineffective.” While students are required to wear their masks indoors at all times and fill out the Screener19 contact tracing form daily as a safety precaution, Jennifer found that many students, particularly upperclassmen, wear their mask improperly or fool around without their mask outside the classroom. Jennifer sees people in class with their masks below their noses and gets annoyed when teachers do nothing to fix improper mask-wearing. 

“They are really immature and just put themselves at risk for COVID-19,” she said.

Even before the pandemic, Jennifer was worried about diseases and would keep trying to keep her distance from her sick classmates. The pandemic has only exacerbated her concerns.

“Recently, one girl in my class was coughing really hard, and I was going to ask my teacher if I could move seats, but all the seats were filled,” Jennifer said. “I know it was just because of allergies, but it still made me uncomfortable.”

Jennifer feels she may be warier about COVID-19 than other students on campus. She and her friends sit somewhat socially distanced — roughly 2 feet apart — during lunch. She has trouble understanding how people can feel safe huddled so close together without their masks. She believes that in general, the school should enforce stricter COVID-19 restrictions to account for unvaccinated students, including mask mandates for outside of the classroom, except during lunch.

Jennifer also agrees with Governor Newsom’s recent vaccine mandate for all students and argues that unvaccinated students should join the Independent Studies program. 

Jennifer acknowledges that some students are unable to get vaccinated due to familial restrictions and believes that those students should not be blamed for putting other students at risk. 

She believes that the whole concept of “anti-vaxxers” has become entirely political. 

“If there was proper evidence that getting the vaccine wasn’t safe — which there isn’t — or if people were having some pretty severe side effects, then it would be understandable to be insecure about getting the vaccine. Now, it has become a question of politics, which is sickening,” she said. “Pandemics are not merely a political issue; they are a global health issue, and people need to understand that.”

AP Computer Science and math teacher Jarvin Bayona believes that the school does a good job in keeping the students safe, especially when compared with other school districts.

The current school policy specifies the requirement of vaccination for staff and faculty, but not for students. Bayona thinks that this is enough, as it’s the faculty who have a responsibility to keep students safe. He praises principal Greg Louie and the school administrators in their policies and monitoring the situation and enforcing COVID-19 precautions. Especially compared to other schools, Bayona said that the school has done a fantastic job.

“I know a friend who works in Chico, and she had half of her class gone because of the number of unvaccinated students who weren’t following mask mandates,” Bayona said. 

According to Bayona, students have been doing a great job regarding the indoor mask policy, lessening the impact of being unvaccinated in the school’s highly vaccinated population. Despite this, Bayona said the staff is still working hard to keep contraction rates at zero.

“We need to make sure we’re doing everything in our capacity to make students safe, especially since students aren’t fully grown adults.”