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Tag: Mumps

  • To Vax or Not to Vax: Eureka Day at 4th Wall

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    How prescient is Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day, now rollicking and roiling at 4th Wall Theatre Company. And how present!

    As if the play had been torn from the headlines – the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in a confusing and contentious meeting as of two days ago, Thursday, September 18, voted against vaccinating children under the age of four with a combination shot that protects against measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox – it’s amazing that Spector wrote this work pre-Covid in 2018. It’s so now.

    At the Eureka Day School in Berkeley, California, perhaps the “wokest” place on the planet, five parents and administrators begin the school year with a hazy quote from the 13th-century Sufi mystic Jamal Rumi. Principal Don (Philip Lehl) leads the executive committee with as gentle a touch as he can manage. Everybody’s voice is respected, each opinion taken seriously. When he must intercede, which he is loathe to do, he does it with quiet restraint. He doesn’t want to make waves. He doesn’t even want to be in the water. One of his favorite refrains is, “I don’t wish to advocate, but…” He hates conflict and would rather change the subject as soon as possible. You know everything you need to know about him when you notice his beaded bracelet and numerous finger rings.

    Along with Don, there’s Suzanne (Kim Tobin-Lehl), the president of the committee, whose sharp tongue withers the opposition; Eli (Nick Farco), a tech giant with mega bucks who loves to man-splain, and is having an affair with Meiko (Laine Chan), who knits throughout and whose daughter will bring contagion to the school; and Carina (Jasmine Renee Thomas), a new parent at the school who holds her own against the soft, not so subtle, prejudice from Suzanne who thinks Carina must be a charity case. Carina is the voice of the sane.

    The ensemble quintet shines brilliantly in their own little arias, whether obtuse or deliberate, petty or catty. Tobin-Lehl delivers a poignant monologue on the death of her baby who may or may not have been accidentally killed by a vaccine; Thomas’ rich contralto grounds our focus, keeping her center stage throughout; Lehl dithers exceptionally as he desperately tries to maintain the peace; Farco, always on edge, fidgets precisely; while Chan, whose character is a bit underwritten, gets a deserved outburst, punctuated by a comic exit trailing her wayward ball of yarn. Exceptional work by all.

    The elite private elementary school is as liberal and progressive as you can imagine in a land kindly derided as “Berserkley.” There are sweet, non-threatening slogans plastered on the classroom walls for the elucidation of the kiddies: Think Positive, Be Positive. Today a Reader, Tomorrow a Leader. Mistakes Happen, Keep Trying. Bromides abound. “No one is a villain” will be said later as the play heats up and sides are taken. The five will butt heads and quickly lose the up-tight demeanor so favored at the school and in the community. Eureka Day School is so neutral-centric that its students cheer the opposing soccer team when it scores against it.

    Civilization will not break down as neatly as in Yasmina Reza’s classic God of Savage, but Spector’s theme is very near to the French playwright’s. He pricks the pretensions of these liberals with a thousand little stiletto cuts. The genteel affability, so phony on the surface, curdles; but the play, furiously funny, is not a screed. These characters are quite human. And when they preen their goodness and fairness and D.E.I. manners, we see ourselves.

    What sets the plot spinning and the five on edge is an outbreak of mumps, started by Meiko’s daughter, who then spreads it to Eli’s son during their playdate, while Eli and Meiko play house together. To vax or not to vax gets heated debate as the concerns between school policy, their own safety worries, and the health of the community begin to pall. It’s lively, in one act, and moves swiftly under Jennifer Dean’s expert direction.

    The best scene in the play, Scene 3, is also the most hilarious. How long should the school be shut down when the health department demands vaccinations for students to attend class. The five decide to hold a live stream where other parents can participate and share their views. A screen drops down where we read the comments which grow increasingly crass and obnoxious as is usual on any open thread. It doesn’t matter what the five are trying to say to the parents, the outside group has an intolerant life of its own, and the audience laughter drowns out the actors’ dialogue anyway. It’s perfect social media satire. Inappropriate, out of hell, and truly silly. Wait for Leslie Kaufman’s gold “thumbs up” emoji that gets gales of laughter each time she posts.

    Spector’s play, which won a Tony Award for Best Revival last season, has become one of the most produced plays in the U.S. according to American Theater Magazine which documents such things. It’s easy to see why. Wicked and thought-provoking, immensely clever, it skewers the faux first-worlders as they navigate through a school pandemic without really knowing how to fix it…or themselves.

    Note: Although Mark A. Lewis’ set design is a masterclass in elementary school detail, my guest at the theater pointed out that the panorama of the Bay Bridge and surroundings seen through the school’s window is wrong. If we’re in Berkeley, the view out the window should be a long shot of downtown San Francisco. The parents at Eureka Day may be woke, but they should know their directions.

    Eureka Day continues through October 11 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; and 2:30 p.m. Sundays at 4th Wall Theatre Company, Silver Street Studios,1824 Spring Street. For more information, call 832-767-4991 or visit 4thwalltheatreco.com. $25-$70.

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    D. L. Groover

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  • Florida plans to end vaccine mandates statewide, including for schoolchildren

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    (CNN) — Florida will move to end all vaccine mandates in the state, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced Wednesday.

    The move would make Florida the first state to end a longstanding – and constitutionally upheld – practice of requiring certain vaccines for school students.

    The state health department will immediately move to end all non-statutory mandates in the state, Ladapo said at a news conference. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was also at the event, said state lawmakers would then look into developing a legislative package to end any remaining mandates.

    Ladapo said that every vaccine mandate “is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”

    All 50 states have had school immunization requirements since the beginning of the 1980s, with incoming kindergartners needing shots to protect against diseases including measles, polio and tetanus. No states require a Covid-19 vaccine for schoolchildren.

    All states allow medical exemptions from these school vaccine mandates, and most also allow for exemptions due to personal or religious beliefs. Exemption rates have been on the rise for years in the US, with a record share of incoming kindergartners skipping the required shots in the 2024-25 school year.

    Florida’s school vaccine exemption rate last school year– about 5% – was higher than the national average, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows, and nearly all were for nonmedical reasons.

    “We are concerned that today’s announcement will put children in Florida public schools at higher risk for getting sick, which will have a ripple effect across our communities,” Dr. Rana Alissa, president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement.

    “For many kids, the best part of school is being with friends – sharing space, playing on the playground, and learning together. Close contact makes it easy for contagious diseases to spread quickly,” she said. “When everyone in a school is vaccinated, it is harder for diseases to spread and easier for everyone to continue learning and having fun. When children are sick and miss school caregivers also miss work, which not only impacts those families but also the local economy.”

    A study published last year by the CDC estimated that routine childhood vaccinations – such as those included in school mandates – will have prevented about 508 million illnesses, 32 million hospitalizations and 1,129,000 deaths among children born between 1994 and 2003. They also were estimated to avert $540 billion in direct costs.

    Ladapo said that vaccination should be an individual choice.

    “People have a right to make their own decisions, informed decisions,” he said. “What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your god. I don’t have that right. Government does not have that right.”

    But experts say that freedom comes with responsibilities.

    “We’re all routinely subject to rules that enable us to live together safely, and I personally want those rules in place to protect me and the people I care about. We abide by speed limits, traffic lights, infant car seat and seatbelt laws – all requirements that have expanded over the years as safety technology and engineering has improved,” said Dr. Kelly Moore, president and CEO of immunize.org, a nonprofit organization focused on vaccine access.

    “I share with many other people the belief that all children who are required to attend school should also have a right to the best possible defense from vaccine-preventable diseases while they are there,” she said.

    Some vaccine mandates in Florida can be rolled back unilaterally by the state health department, Ladapo said, but others will require coordination with lawmakers.

    Experts who oppose the move to end vaccine mandates emphasize that the change is not final and that timing is critical.

    With the announcement coming after the start of the school year, Floridians will have a chance to experience and reflect on what a year of low vaccination coverage looks like, Moore said.

    “This timing gives leaders several months to reconsider whether this is what’s best for Florida families. It’s quite likely that Floridians will have reasons to regret that decision as time goes by and outbreaks disrupt learning,” she said.

    The American Medical Association “strongly opposes” the plan to end vaccine mandates, Dr. Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, an internal medicine physician and member of the professional organization’s board of trustees, said in a statement.

    “This unprecedented rollback would undermine decades of public health progress and place children and communities at increased risk for diseases such as measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox resulting in serious illness, disability, and even death,” she said. “While there is still time, we urge Florida to reconsider this change to help prevent a rise of infectious disease outbreaks that put health and lives at risk.”

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    Deidre McPhillips, Shawn Nottingham and CNN

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