FAIRFAX COUNTY, Virginia (LifeSiteNews) – Public schools in Fairfax County, Virginia, are to require student athletes to take an experimental COVID jab in order to participate in school sports. The announcement comes despite the fact that The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the current best estimate of the infection fatality rate for all children under 18 years of age is 0.00002 or 0.002%.
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Superintendent Scott S. Brabrand issued a statement last week confirming the need for vaccination against COVID-19 for any student wishing to participate in “Virginia High School League (VHSL) winter and spring sports for the remainder of the 2021-22 school year.”
Beginning November 8, the mandate will also apply to the “dance team and step team, as well as out-of-season practices and workouts,” Brabrand wrote.
In his message to the school community, Brabrand stated that getting students to take the experimental shots “is a critical step in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 and minimizing any disruption to learning.”
“The majority of pauses to instruction for our high school students come as a result of exposure during athletic activities, which the Virginia Department of Education classifies as a high-risk activity,” he added. No supporting evidence was provided to substantiate this claim.
Brabrand argued that, while a “difficult decision for some families” to force their children to take the experimental, abortion-tainted COVID shots, “it is an essential step that we must take to limit the duration of a pause, getting students back to the classroom and their activities sooner, but still safely.”
Brabrand’s announcement made no reference to the fact that the list of FDA-recognized adverse events after individuals have received a COVID jab has grown from severe anaphylactic reactions to include fatal thrombotic events, the inflammatory heart condition myocarditis, and neurologically disabling disease like Guillain Barré Syndrome, as well as thousands of recorded deaths and permanent disabilities.
The student vaccine push comes on the heels of the FCPS mandating the jabs for staff working in the district. Brabrand released a statement August 20 detailing an enhanced protocol for mitigating viral transmission, one measure of which is to require “all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit routine negative COVID-19 tests.”
Despite Brabrand’s insistence that the jabs are a “critical step” in slowing the spread of the virus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised in July that the “fully vaccinated” still wear face masks indoors on account of increased “breakthrough” infections of the virus.
“To maximize protection from the Delta variant and prevent possibly spreading it to others, wear a mask indoors in public if you are in an area of substantial or high transmission,” reads the updated CDC guidance for the fully vaccinated.
FCPS has faced backlash following Brabrand’s announcement, with parents raising concerns that they have been side-stepped in the implementation of the vaccine mandate.
“Parents feel like we’ve been shut out of the process, and I think this decision this morning is another example of that,” a parent within the district told FOX5 at the time. “I think it’s another example of the fact Fairfax County school system doesn’t think before they communicate sometimes, the message was not well thought out.”
Another parent, Missy Pratt, complained that mandating vaccination is “just outrageous … It’s so much pressure on the kids,” WUSA9 reported.
Pratt added that requiring student athletes to take up the shots first “puts us on a slippery slope,” and that she was not given a detailed reason for why student sports was being targeted for the program “beyond that there have been some outbreaks in the athletic community.”
“[T]he fact that student-athletes are being singled out is completely unfair. Not that I think the mandate should be applied to any students at all,” she said.
Exactly what will constitute proof of vaccination for students to participate in sports beyond November 8 has not yet been disclosed, however, The Washington Times revealed that exemptions to the mandate are expected to be granted on “the grounds of religion and health.”
Of concern for young people taking the COVID jabs has been the increase in cases of both myocarditis and pericarditis, a dangerous inflammation in and around the heart, following the shots.
The Pfizer jab, which is the one principally distributed in Fairfax County according to Jeff McKay, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors chairman, has been reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) 3,194 times for cases of myocarditis or pericarditis, 72.6 percent of all such reports following all available COVID shots.
11.58 percent of myocarditis or pericarditis reports following Pfizer’s jab occurred among 12–17 year olds, over double that of the 65-plus age group.
In Ireland, a 23-year-old boy who took the Johnson & Johnson-developed COVID shot died just days after his supposed inoculation. Roy Butler, a former professional football player in his home county of Waterford, took the single-dose shot (marketed in Europe under the name Janssen) on August 13.
Within hours Butler was said to have suffered “headaches and feeling unwell,” leading to him being rushed to hospital where his illness developed, resulting in vomiting, and fits.
The following Monday Butler was placed into an induced coma owing to a bleed on his brain, but the boy died the following day, August 17, just four days after receiving his shot.