Costa Rica has imposed Covid-19 vaccines for children. But not everyone is on board

Yet a small, vocal group of parents — like those who surrounded the hospital last week — oppose the measure, catapulting the mandatory vaccine debate onto the floors of Congress.

The attack in Heredia unfolded after a six-year-old boy was admitted to hospital with a respiratory problem, according to hospital director Priscila Balmaceda Chaves. When the attending physician learned that the child was not vaccinated, he told the child’s father that he should do so. According to the mandate, a child can be vaccinated even if their parents do not consent, but this process is not instantaneous, according to public health expert Roman Macaya Hayes, who heads the Costa Social Security Institute. Ric.

Angered that his child could be vaccinated without his permission, the father – along with six others – came down to arrest him, officials say. That’s when the fight broke out.

Congresswoman Silvia Hernández Sánchez called the group “a mob irritated by madness”, whose violent actions “put staff and patients at risk”, with Costa Rica’s Minister of Public Security asking the courts ” to apply the full severity of the law”.

Hayes told CNN that protecting a child’s health is equivalent to preventing child abuse, because the outcome is the same: ensuring the well-being of minors.

He explained that compulsory vaccination is supported by legislation, including laws that support the “constitutional right to life and, therefore, to health.”

“The collective good supersedes the rights of the individual,” Hayes said.

Not all lawmakers agree, though they too seem to be in the minority.

One of those most vocal opponents is independent lawmaker Erick Rodríguez Steller, who called the mandate “nonsense,” saying it leaves Costa Rica under a “sanitary dictatorship.”

While Rodríguez says he does not condone the violence that took place at Heredia Hospital, he said the father had every right to prevent his child from getting vaccinated.

Rodríguez voiced his opposition to the mandate in congress last week, saying “the state shouldn’t decide how we raise our children.”

He later told CNN he had been vaccinated, believed in science and was not an ‘anti-vaxxer’ – even though local media allege the father of the boy at the center of the controversy is.

Rodríguez said he thinks there isn’t enough information about the risks of vaccines for children – and that he and others who oppose the mandate just want to find out the “truth” about the risks. potential risks.

Studies around the world have concluded that Covid-19 vaccines are safe for children, with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending them for children aged 5 and over.

And in Latin America, Cuba, Chile and Argentina have been running successful childhood vaccination campaigns for months.

Yet governments around the world have largely avoided mandatory vaccinations, opting instead for incentives to motivate people to get vaccinated.

Some say the mandates are testing the line between public health and civil liberties, adding to tensions between those who are vaccinated and those who are not.

Rodríguez, the independent lawmaker, said he doesn’t completely rule out supporting a term, but must have congressional consensus.

“When it comes to restricting rights and freedoms, it has to go through the Legislative Assembly, and here the health authorities have ignored us,” he said.

Hayes insists that the mandate is not to restrict freedoms, but to ensure the public good, especially when there is a vaccine that has been shown to be safe and effective around the world.

“Let’s keep alive the Costa Rican tradition of believing in vaccines, believing in science, and believing in doctors who treat patients in their best interests, because these vaccines save lives,” he said.