On March 12th, 2019, Italy passed a law to make vaccinations mandatory to go to school. If your children are not vaccinated by the time they are six, the parents will be fined. Children are not allowed to go to nursery schools if they are not vaccinated, but the parents of lower and middle school will be fined up to 500 euros. This week at least 300 children were turned away from kindergarten in the city of Bologna. Before this law was in place parents could simply state that their kids had been vaccinated even if they had not, because the school, by law, did not need proof of the vaccinations.
Now we decided to interview some people on how they felt about the vaccinations becoming mandatory in Italy.
Theo D. ‘24 “I think it’s a good cause and it’s a good use of time for the Italians.”
Luca S. ‘24 “It is bad I’m not saying vaccines are bad, I am saying mandatory vaccines are bad, some people have died because they took too many vaccines.”
Myles R. ´24 “I think vaccinations are a good thing and they should be mandatory.”
Lily S. ´24 “I think vaccines are very important to keep our nation healthy and stop another measles outbreak.”
Violet B. ´24 “I think my first impression just by hearing that alone is that I don’t like it’s mandatory I’m glad somebody is making an effort to have vaccines available but I think it should be up to consent.”
Mel D. ´23 “So as a person that has been vaccinated I see the importance of vaccinations and I see how this could help Italian citizens and I can see how the anti-vaxxers think it is unjust because forcing them to make a decision about their health that they may not want to do.”
By: Isaac Dubb ’24 and Lyle Goldader ’24