A mystery anti-vaxxer is at large in Keswick – flyposting the town with alarming messages – including at a local nursery and primary school.
Throughout the summer social distancing signs from Allerdale council have been targeted with “Fake News” stickers, as have bins and lampposts.
More recently a heavily capitalised poster was left outside St Herbert’s on Trinity Way, with the school also reporting instances of someone shouting anti-vaccine messages outside.
The fly-poster has warned parents not to allow “healthy children” to be vaccinated with an “experimental Mrna gene” and warned of “thousands of deaths and millions of life-changing adverse reactions” – appealing on parents to “protect children, do their research, and not believe the media.”
Statistics from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have also appeared in Station Street with people urged to seek out information from the
MHRA’s yellow card reporting website where people can freely report suspected side effects from coronavirus treatment.
Yet Colin Cox, director of public health in the county, called the mystery flyposter “misguided” and said the information shown to him by the Reminder was not accurate and appeared to be part of a trend being seen across Cumbria.
Mr Cox said: “My own view is that the author of the poster is extremely misguided. MRNA vaccines may be new, but they’re not experimental – they’ve been through a rigorous development and testing process to make sure that they are both safe and effective before being approved for use.
“And the yellow card scheme – which is the long-standing process for reporting potential adverse reactions to drugs – has certainly not demonstrated the sort of concerns that the poster suggests.
“As the latest weekly report on the Yellow Card scheme for COVID vaccines points out: “As with any vaccine, the COVID-19 vaccines will cause side effects in some people.
The total number and the nature of yellow cards reported so far is not unusual for a new vaccine for which members of the public and healthcare professionals are encouraged to report any suspected adverse reaction.
This is the national safety surveillance system working extremely effectively. Where I absolutely agree with the poster is that it’s our duty to protect children. Vaccination is by far the best way of doing that and I’d encourage anyone who is eligible for the vaccine to have it as soon as possible.”
Simon Jackson, headteacher of Keswick School, said there had been no such instances at its premises and its role was to send out consent form to parents and carers on behalf of the School Aged Immunisation Service which did the vaccinations.
Sheila Hughes, headteacher of St Herbert’s, said she respected everyone’s right to an opinion but was puzzled to see St Herbert’s targeted with a poster.
She said: “Children up to the age of 11, which is the age of the children we have at St Herbert’s are not being put forward for vaccination.
“We do deal with children who get COVID or whose family members have got or had Covid, but we are not dealing with vaccinations.”
Ms Hughes said the school had never acted as a centre for vaccinations either. She said: “From what I can gather, what is sometimes misunderstood is that some people are thinking the schools are doing the vaccination or vaccinating children, which is not true.
“The National Health Service is vaccinating children and they are using school premises to do that and are doing that with full permission forms from all the parents, and if they don’t have that permission form then they are not vaccinating them.”
“So it is a bit odd that schools are getting all the protests outside the railings but it’s a case of people not necessarily understanding that it is not the schools doing the vaccinating, it’s the national health service which are pooling children in one commonplace and are doing this nationally.
“We have seen some anti-vaccine messages and stickers on lampposts and various things, and there have been people who have walked past our railing and staff have reported shouting messages about what schools are doing.
“They are entitled to their opinion but it would be helpful if they dealt with it in the right way rather than sticking posters up.”
