Conservative talk show host Candace Owens said Friday that government campaigns to induce children to receive the COVID-19 vaccine resemble “Stalin youth programs” and are designed to have kids do “whatever the state wants.”
WATCH:
“We can always look to history to see where everything’s come from,” Owens told “Fox News Primetime.” “This is so reminiscent to me of when I studied Stalin youth programs, Hitler youth programs. We are talking about schools and the government issuing these brainwashing doctrines down to say to children it’s okay: do this or do that because they are trying to raise up children to do whatever the state wants unquestioningly,” the author continued.
Owens objected to financial incentives being offered for vaccinated children. “An adult should not be coming to you and trying to bribe you to do anything especially when we’re talking about medical decisions that belong to the parents. There’s something else going on here though aside from making people uncomfortable, there is some undercurrent here that to me appears evil and appears sinister.” (RELATED: New Jersey Reportedly Offers Reduced Prison Sentences If Inmates Get Vaccinated Against COVID-19)
“This should make every parent extremely uncomfortable,” Owens said in reference to an ad from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio advertising the financial incentive of getting the vaccine to children. She said there is “something about this that feels like a child predator approaching your child” and said it reminds her of a stranger approaching a child in a playground and saying, “Here’s some candy.”
The conservative activist insisted the child vaccine conservation is one “that goes further than just the vaccines” and “further than just the vaccine mandates,” as she claimed the debate highlights “what children are learning in the classroom.”
“It’s time for parents to take control over their children and to realize the government is trying to step in as the parent and it’s quite frankly inappropriate.”
Owens said the coronavirus does not pose a great risk to children, yet cities like San Francisco will soon require that 5-year-old children be vaccinated to enter places of business. “I mean, this is unfathomable. This is scary stuff that we’re talking about: a dystopian nightmare and some parents are going along with it which I really don’t understand. I really do hope that this is the firm line in the sand.”
She hoped that the push to vaccinate children will illicit an “enough is enough” response from parents, who may have agreed with vaccination for the elderly adults and college students, “but I’m finally going to have to draw a line in the sand when we are talking about innocent 5-year-olds and making medical decisions that are quite frankly unnecessary when you look at the data and the statistics.” (RELATED: ‘Long COVID-19’ Is Incredibly Rare In Kids, New Data Shows)
Registered nurse Marcie Weissman comforts a child ahead of his Covid-19 vaccination shot on May 13, 2021 in Houston, Texas. Xavier Academy and Texas Resolutions and Compounding Pharmacy hosted the clinic for 12- to 15-year olds in the center of West University. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report in early September that assessed how COVID-19 was affecting children in terms of hospitalizations and emergency room visits between Aug. 1, 2020 and Aug. 21, 2021. It stated that the death rate among children hospitalized for the coronavirus was 0.4%.
The CDC has also stated that non-vaccinated children are less likely to contract or die from COVID-19 than their vaccinated grandparents, and provided data that indicated over 500 children have died from COVID-19.
Other medical experts say vaccinating children is not as important as ensuring those most vulnerable to the virus are vaccinated.
“What’s the driver of the pandemic going to be in America over the coming months? It’s going to be the unvaccinated because it has been all summer, and that will remain the case and nothing is going to change,” Dr. John Moore, professor of microbiology and immunology at Cornell University told the Daily Caller.
“Vaccinating children is important to the children who want to be vaccinated, but it’s not as important overall as getting more vaccine into the unvaccinated.”