WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday barring federal tax dollars from any public school that continues to mandate COVID-19 shots as a condition of student attendance, in the interest of “keeping education accessible.”
“Some school districts and universities continue to coerce children and young adults into taking the COVID-19 vaccine by conditioning their education on it, and others may re-implement such mandates,” the order says. “Parents and young adults should be empowered with accurate data regarding the remote risks of serious illness associated with COVID-19 for children and young adults, as well as how those risks can be mitigated through various measures, and left free to make their own decisions accordingly.”
“Given the incredibly low risk of serious COVID-19 illness for children and young adults, threatening to shut them out of an education is an intolerable infringement on personal freedom. Such mandates usurp parental authority and burden students of many faiths,” it adds.
The order applies to any “educational service agency, State educational agency, local educational agency, elementary school, secondary school, or institution of higher education” that receives federal funding.
Just 15 colleges and universities in the United States continue to have COVID shot mandates as of February 15, according to the medical freedom group No College Mandates. No state currently has a statewide mandate for K-12 schools, according to Immunize.org, but just over half the states allow school districts to impose their own, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy.
A large body of evidence has indicated serious problems with the COVID shots, which were developed in record time under the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative.
The federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports 38,398 deaths, 220,128 hospitalizations, 22,192 heart attacks, and 28,862 myocarditis and pericarditis cases as of January 31, among other ailments. U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) researchers have recognized a “high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination,” leading to the conclusion that “under-reporting is more likely” than over-reporting.
An analysis of 99 million people across eight countries published February in the journal Vaccine “observed significantly higher risks of myocarditis following the first, second and third doses” of mRNA-based COVID shots, as well as signs of increased risk of “pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis,” and other “potential safety signals that require further investigation.” In April, the CDC was forced to release by court order 780,000 previously undisclosed reports of serious adverse reactions, and a study out of Japan found “statistically significant increases” in cancer deaths after third doses of mRNA-based COVID-19 shots, and offered several theories for a causal link.
In January, a long-awaited Florida grand jury report on the COVID shot manufacturers found that there are “profound and serious issues” in pharmaceutical companies’ review process, including reluctance to share what evidence of adverse events they did find.
All eyes are currently on Trump and his health team, which will be helmed by Robert F. Kennedy as secretary of Health and Human Services. As one of the country’s most vocal critics of the COVID establishment and vaccines more generally, his nomination brought hope that the second Trump administration will take a critical reassessment of the shots that the returning president has previously embraced, although most of Kennedy’s comments since joining Trump have focused on other issues, such as conventional vaccines and harmful food additives, and during confirmation hearings he called Operation Warp Speed an “extraordinary accomplishment.”
Trump has given mixed signals as to the prospects of reconsidering the shots, and has nominated both critics and defenders of establishment COVID measures for a number of administration roles.