The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The CDC reported an outbreak of Salmonella bacteria linked to flour in 11 states across the country that has so far caused 12 illnesses and 3 hospitalizations.
The agency said investigators are already working to identify a specific brand of flour linked to the outbreak. However, any raw flour — unbaked — can carry germs, such as Salmonella.
In that sense, they called for not eating or playing with raw flour, dough or batter, including raw cookie dough, buns, bread or cake.
It is noteworthy that most people reported eating raw dough or batter made with flour before becoming ill.
Therefore, flour was the only common ingredient in the raw dough or batter that people reported eating.
While flour may not look like raw food, most of it is. This means it has not been treated to kill the germs that cause food poisoning.
Any raw flour used to make dough or batter can be contaminated with germs such as Salmonella, which are killed when the flour is cooked or baked.
What you should do
Do not eat raw dough or batter; even a small amount can make you or your children sick; bake or cook foods made with raw flour, such as cookie dough or cake batter, before eating them; follow the recipe or package directions for cooking or baking; use the temperature and cooking time indicated in the recipe or directions.
Also, purchase heat-treated flour to use in homemade playdough recipes; wash bowls, utensils, and surfaces that touched raw flour with warm, soapy water; wash your hands with warm, soapy water before and after using raw flour; keep raw flour, dough, and batter separate from foods that will not be cooked.
Remember to seek immediate medical attention if you or your child develop diarrhea and a fever over 102°F, diarrhea for more than 3 days that does not improve, bloody diarrhea, vomiting so much that you cannot keep liquids down, and signs of dehydration such as not urinating much, dry mouth and throat, and feeling dizzy when standing up.
Salmonella Symptoms
Most people infected with Salmonella experience diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps. Symptoms usually begin 6 hours to 6 days after swallowing the bacteria.
Most people recover without treatment in 4 to 7 days. Some people, especially children younger than 5 years, adults older than 65 years, and people with weakened immune systems, may experience more severe illness that requires medical treatment or hospitalization.
Redwood City Police are investigating a hit and run that occurred Friday night and are asking for the public's help.
Police responded to the scene near Veterans Boulevard and Maple Street around 9:25 p.m., where a bicyclist and a vehicle were involved in a collision.
Police said in a 6:22 a.m. Saturday notice that a vehicle involved in the collision is still being sought. Anyone who witnessed the collision is asked to contact Redwood City police.
Every year, Sustainable San Mateo County ‒SSMC‒ honors sustainability leaders who have made significant progress in protecting our people and planet through their work with local organizations, businesses, and governments, and Thursday night, several awards were presented to men, women, and young people who have made a difference in this locality.
SSMC has presented 166 local sustainability champion awards since 1999, seeking to inspire and honour those working to make the region truly sustainable.
With the theme “A Hopeful Future for Our Youth,” this Thursday, March 30, at 5:30 p.m., Colegio de San Mateo, located at 1700 W. Hillsdale Blvd., dressed up to celebrate these individuals, have dinner, and be part of a silent auction.
In this 24th edition of the Sustainable San Mateo County Awards, the winners were:
Sustainability Award: Diane Bailey, Tom Kabat, Redwood High School and SEI.
Green Building Award: Burlingame Community Center.
Green Building Award Presentation: Burlingame Community Center. Photo: Anna Lee Mraz P360P
Green Building Honorable Mentions: Atherton Library and Gilead Sciences' Wellbeing Center.
Praise Youth for Sustainability: Alex Wagonfeld, Colin Chu, and Ethan Hua.
From left to right: Ethan Hua, Alex Wagonfeld and Colin Chu. Photo: Anna Lee Mraz P360P.
Diane Bailey has led sustainability efforts in Menlo Park since 2015 through the nonprofit Menlo Spark. Under her leadership, with much support from fellow awardee Tom Kabat, Menlo Spark helped mobilize city residents to address climate change, persuading the City Council to adopt a goal of being carbon neutral by 2030, the most aggressive goal for the city in San Mateo County.
Last year, Menlo Spark helped forge a public-private partnership between BlocPower and Menlo Park for a citywide electrification and job training program, which included securing $4.5 million in state funding to help low-income households transition off natural gas in Menlo Park.
Tom Kabat, Chairman of the Menlo Park Environmental Quality Commission, is an environmental and mechanical engineer with four decades of experience in energy efficiency, utility programs, utility delivery planning, and public policy areas.
Tom Kabat. Photo: Anna Lee Mraz P360P
Tom has leveraged his extensive experience providing assistance and analysis to a variety of electrification efforts, including developing ways to electrify without increasing the size of electrical panels. Tom assisted with a recent San Mateo County study on new methods for electrifying homes.
Together, Diane and Tom founded the Fossil-Free Buildings Campaign in Silicon Valley (FFBSV) in 2019, which now has 40 member organizations and has helped persuade 30 cities in San Mateo County and Santa Clara County to limit or ban fossil fuels in new construction.
Diane Bailey. Photo: Anna Lee Mraz P360P
SEI is a San Rafael-based environmental nonprofit that trains young leaders across the Bay Area to drive sustainability solutions and develops leadership pathways from elementary school through early career.
SEI representatives. Photo: Anna Lee Mraz P360P
Sequoia High School has a strong commitment to students’ futures with a focus on post-secondary options and environmental sustainability. Its new sustainable, climate-resilient campus opened in 2018 and features energy-efficient heating and cooling, solar power, and biofiltration.
Redwood High School representatives. Photo: Anna Lee Mraz P360P
The school features a large outdoor educational space with an organic garden, greenhouse, composting system, chicken coop, rainwater harvesting systems, riparian corridor, and outdoor classroom. Students participate in environmentally infused curricula that include maintaining the school garden, using produce harvested from the garden in culinary arts classes, and analyzing food systems through hands-on aquaponics labs.
The young people who are committed to sustainability and have been recognized have volunteered their time to make the county more sustainable.
Alex Wagonfeld of Hillsborough received an SSMC Youth Sustainability Citation for his work in mobilizing peers at The Nueva School and other local high schools to get involved in environmental projects, and his involvement in urging private high schools across the U.S. to divest from fossil fuels.
Alex Wagonfeld. Photo: Anna Lee Mraz P360P
Colin Chu of Portola Valley, who also attends The Nueva School, runs the Homeless Heroes organization that educates the public about homelessness and has delivered over a thousand meals each year from local schools to homeless shelters in the county.
Colin Chu. Photo: Anna Lee Mraz P360P
Meanwhile, Ethan Hua of San Mateo attends Aragon High School and founded the Help Our Planet Earth Uniform Program (HOPE), which serves the community by accepting and reusing school uniforms, thereby reducing contributions to landfills.
A school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, in which the suspect was identified as transgender, has created a wave of fear in the transgender community, who feel vulnerable to attacks. March 31 is Transgender Day of Visibility.
Physical violence and verbal abuse are the norm for many transgender youth. This week, when news broke that 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who killed six people, including three 9-year-old students at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, was transgender, the LGBTQIA community began to fear for itself.
Susan Maasch, director of the Trans Youth Equality Foundation in Portland, Maine, told EMS: “Yesterday we got a call from a man who was yelling at us. ‘What are you going to do with your donations? Are you going to use them to train kids to kill Christian kids?’ This was very scary.”
"We have scared children, scared families, scared organizations that fear being attacked, but there is no support," he said.
Maasch said he called the FBI to report the hateful phone call, but was unable to get through to a receptionist. “I will talk to local law enforcement, but I’m not sure what will come of that. The answer is just not there.”
The FBI and the Justice Department held a briefing this week with organizations that support transgender youth, advising them on how to stay safe during a potential surge in violence against the community.
“This is a terrible, scary and intimidating time for transgender people and their loved ones,” Maasch stressed. “The fact that this shooter was transgender will be used and abused by politicians and others.”
She pointed to the current climate of hostility in many states, which are demonizing trans people through legislation and rhetoric. “These are right-wing attacks from uninformed people. There is a sense of going backwards.”
Children in red states are having a particularly difficult time, Maasch said, noting that there are few resources available to them.
Maasch spoke of the need for gender-affirming care, noting that there is no cure for body dysphoria. “If you don’t treat it, that’s when you put yourself in danger. Some kids go dark when you try to erase their gender. They start to lose hope and become depressed and anxious.”
She encouraged children struggling with gender identity to reach out to their organization TYEF or The Trevor Project, which has a good track record of supporting transgender youth. Trusted people, including older siblings or an aunt, can also be a source of support, Maasch explained.
Stella Tice spent much of her young life trying to conform to the masculine norms of the gender she was assigned at birth.
“I always felt like I was different from everyone else,” Tice, 22, told Ethnic Media Services in an interview. “The early stages of dysphoria hit especially hard during puberty. I didn’t have any language or knowledge to express it,” said Tice, who grew up in rural Klamath Falls, Oregon, and attended church every Sunday with her family, as well as a religious youth group every Wednesday night.
Tice said she was bullied a lot at school. But she never told high school administrators or even her parents what she was experiencing. “I was uncomfortable sharing my feelings because I was worried about being ridiculed by my peers.”
About 16 months ago, with the support of her partner, Tice began transitioning to female. Telling her parents was initially difficult. “It was a rough start, but they definitely learned a lot. I come from a very close-knit family. And they didn’t want to lose me.”
Tice’s older brother turned out to be one of his staunchest supporters. “Wherever you end up, you have my 100 percent support,” he told me.
Tice and her partner live in Eugene, Oregon, which has a large LGBTQIA community, so the young woman was able to access the support she needed during her transition process.
She was also able to lean on gender-affirming care, which is in danger of dying out in 11 states, including, most recently, Iowa and Kentucky. Other states that ban gender-affirming care for minors include: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah.
Tice urged trans youth to turn to sub-Redits, transgender Twitch streamers and transgender TikTok content creators for a sense of community and support.
"I know this is a cliché, but it will get better and better," he said.
This publication was supported in whole or part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library.
By Pamela Cruz with information and images from Gerardo Ortiz. P360P.
The phone rings, a 9-1-1 emergency service operator receives a call. They are informed that there is an active shooting in a public space and that the suspect is at the scene. The authorities must mobilize and act with caution, since it is not yet known how many people could be in danger, the heart is racing and it is time to keep a cool head, another day of work.
This is a situation that thousands of operators and police officers face almost every day in the US, and because of it, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office has undergone special training, which will be annual starting this year, to prepare for active shootings and risky situations where lives are at stake.
Thus, on March 28 and 29, Sheriff's Office agents met at the Half Moon Bay IDES Society facilities, located at 735 Main St., in Half Moon Bay, a small coastal town that just last January 23 suffered a strong blow to its community, when a man shot at a couple of agricultural farms, leaving 7 dead, to prepare themselves more and better for acts like that.
Photo: Gerardo Ortiz P360P
Stories like that, and those that happen constantly around the country, led San Mateo County to better prepare.
“The training, which will now be an annual one for us, is due to the events that have occurred across the country and in our county. This is our new normal, unfortunately. And in order for us to protect our communities, we know that this training is paramount,” said San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus.
In an interview with Peninsula 360 Press, the sheriff explained that her team has often worked with the standards of what others do and that, due to a changing and complex world, they need to respond in the best ways to save lives.
Photo: Gerardo Ortiz P360P
“For me, as a sheriff, I understand that our world is changing. It’s becoming more complex. The types of crimes that are occurring are more complex and in order for us to truly respond in a way where we’re saving lives or protecting our community, we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard and so we’re evaluating all of our training at this point,” he stressed.
In this regard, the leader of this authority stated that they have made an evaluation of what is known, what has been learned and areas in which improvement can be achieved.
Photo: Gerardo Ortiz P360P
"This is really an opportunity for us to see where we can improve and then provide that training to them. That way we're not waiting until something happens."
Corpus acknowledged that the failure to respond adequately to the recent shooting in Half Moon Bay was “a big shock to everyone, I’m sure. The sheriff’s office may have learned something from that experience that they’re bringing to this new training.”
“We see it every day on the news, all these shootings that are happening and the innocent lives that are being lost, it doesn’t make sense. So, we need to have more complexity in our training so that we can respond better.”
But this type of training was not only useful for the Sheriff's Office, as other authorities that should be involved were invited to participate, such as the Calfire CZU Fire Department, which serves the area; and school personnel belonging to the school districts of San Mateo County.
Photo: Gerardo Ortiz P360P
“…we have Calfire involved, we have school administrators involved because they are our partners and together we can respond better. We know what each of us has been trained to do, we have the same training, so it was really important for me to invite and include our stakeholders and really be able to get the word out,” Christina Corpus explained.
“…schools are part of our community and we want our school officials to be aware of the training that we’re providing, and also to be able to learn from it. There are certain aspects of the training that is one way that our police will respond. But if it were to happen outside of school, then our school officials will know what to expect from us and really understand the importance of collaborating, but also keeping those lines of communication open.”
unite to win
Photo: Gerardo Ortiz P360P
The recent incident at a private school in Nashville, Tennessee, where 6 people were killed in a shooting, three of them just 9 years old, shook the country again, especially the residents of San Mateo County, because with what happened in Half Moon Bay, the alarms went off again.
That is why the Sheriff has sought to have her entire team join the community, especially with students and teachers, providing them with tools and programs that help them not feel alone and that they can count on these authorities to solve certain problems.
"We have officers who work inside the schools. But we are working to have a stronger relationship with the students and with the teachers, because it is important that if we can help a young person or give them resources and programs, that is how we have a stronger relationship with them," Corpus said.
Photo: Gerardo Ortiz P360P
Although California has one of the toughest laws in the country regarding the use and possession of firearms, the county has focused on controlling the trafficking of weapons from other states, which is why it has teams that are on the lookout for unregistered weapons.
However, Corpus has stressed that the problem goes further. "We need to look at the country level, because one of the main causes of death of children and young people is due to a firearm."
In addition to this, they have provided mental and psychological support by working with other agencies to deal with cases where someone is in crisis.
To this end, Corpus said, work is already underway to create teams of clinical professionals who can help assess people who are in crisis, but with a view to having them work hand in hand with officers in a co-response model, and not always responding in a lethal manner, where it is not required, "so that it does not escalate further and talking to people, but not just grabbing the firearm."
Photo: Gerardo Ortiz P360P
It should be noted that the scenarios are always different, so the officers have prepared themselves with programs based on cases that have occurred in the country, since not all attackers use firearms, some have knives, razors, machetes, and the fact is that, "when you go to a place, you don't know what weapon the person is going to have."
For Orlando Baltazar Gutierrez, an officer with the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office, these training sessions are important for schools, as they open channels of communication to know what to do if they have to deal with shootings at these schools.
By speaking Spanish, the officer has been able to reach out to Latino residents in the area, who have expressed their concerns, but are aware that working as a team is the best resource.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced this week that the San Mateo County Library system is among 30 finalists for the 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service.
The 13-library system said in a statement that “the medal is the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries that demonstrate significant impact in their communities. For more than 25 years, the award has honored institutions that demonstrate excellence in service to their communities.”
“At San Mateo County Libraries, we are champions of learning, growth and bright futures,” Anne-Marie Despain, director of San Mateo County Libraries, said in the release.
“We strive to drive growth through transformative experiences, and we are thrilled to be recognized for our achievement through this national honor,” he added.
To celebrate the honor, IMLS encourages members of the San Mateo County Libraries community to share stories, memories, photos and videos on social media using the hashtags #ShareYourStory and #IMLSmedals.
National Medal recipients will be announced in late May. Representatives of the winning institutions will be honored for their extraordinary contributions during an in-person National Medal Ceremony this summer.
The Redwood City Police Department ha emitido una ficha de persona desaparecida a nombre de Erick Morales, de 41 años, quien fue visto por última vez el sábado 25 de marzo.
Authorities have stated that Erick is a Hispanic male adult, approximately 6 feet tall and 240 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
Police said Morales suffers from schizophrenia and has not taken his medication.
Erick Morales también es conocido por frecuentar las ciudades de los alrededores, incluida San Francisco.
El Departamento de Policía ha solicitado a los residentes que, si ven a Erick, se comuniquen a la estación al número 650-780-7118.
In response to community concerns, the Redwood City Council is considering new regulations to further control retail sales of guns and ammunition within City limits and has asked residents to take a survey and attend public meetings to discuss the issue.
This proposal will affect all retail stores that sell these products, including all sporting goods stores and gun stores. On October 24, 2022, the City Council enacted a temporary moratorium on the establishment of new retail sales of guns and ammunition. The temporary moratorium is in effect until regulations are established, or until October 23 of this year.
All residents who would like to provide their comments through a poll, which is available in English and Spanish.
Or go directly to the next public meeting, which will be held entirely in Spanish on April 5th at 6:00 p.m. at the Community Activities Building, located at 1400 Roosevelt Ave.
Additionally, residents can also email firearm_sales@redwoodcity.org
Verbal comments will be accepted at the Planning Commission meeting tentatively scheduled for May 2.
What is under consideration?
The City Council will consider regulating the retail sale of guns and ammunition, while key goals of the developing city ordinance include limiting unsupervised children's exposure to firearms; and protecting places such as schools, daycare centers, places of worship, libraries and parks from proximity to gun and/or ammunition sales.
Map of locations with sensitive uses such as schools, daycare centers, places of worship, libraries and parks, close to the sale of weapons and/or ammunition.
Additionally, ensuring that law enforcement can confirm that firearms and ammunition are securely stored and accounted for at retail establishments; and requiring local municipal permits to open retail gun and ammunition stores.
The city government said it is not seeking to ban all firearm or ammunition sales in Redwood City, nor to regulate the right to own, acquire or carry a firearm or ammunition.
Key dates
The proposal will be refined on April 5, while the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on May 2 and recommend the adoption of a resolution ‒with a 10-day hearing notice‒.
A City Council public hearing and first reading/introduction of the Ordinance is expected to take place on May 22; the second reading/adoption of the proposed ordinance by the City Council will take place on June 12; and a decision on whether to adopt the proposed Ordinance will be made on July 12.
It should be recalled that on October 24, 2022, the City Council voted to adopt Ordinance No. 2515 as an urgent precautionary measure, imposing a 45-day moratorium on the establishment of new retail uses dedicated to the sale of firearms or ammunition.
The City Council adopted the temporary Moratorium after residents, through detailed correspondence and public testimony, expressed concern that a new retail establishment dedicated to the sale of firearms and ammunition could open a location in the City, without the City having the opportunity to consider planning and zoning issues regarding the location, for example, retailers in proximity to sensitive uses such as schools, parks, and residences, or regarding conditional use provisions.
Currently, Redwood City does not have specific regulations for firearms retailers, so it is treated like any other commercial retail business.
The 45-Day Moratorium was adopted to “pause,” in the short term, the establishment of new firearms and ammunition retailers to allow the City time to study and analyze the planning and zoning regulations governing the establishment of new retailers engaged in the sale of firearms and ammunition, including with respect to the appropriate processes, locations, and conditions for the approval and establishment of such retailers.
However, on November 28, 2022, the City Council adopted a new ordinance extending No. 2515 to allow the City time to study and consider enacting zoning measures for future retail uses of firearms or ammunition.
The temporary moratorium extension is through October 23, 2023, although staff anticipates that the City Council will consider policy recommendations in May 2023, and the temporary moratorium will end once local regulations are adopted.
Union Square Alliance Executive Director Marisa Rodriguez presents a five-point plan to revitalize Union Square on Nov. 22, 2022. (Olivia Wynkoop/Bay City News)
As San Francisco's hotel industry makes plans to revive its Union Square shopping district, hotels in the city are looking to hire 1,200 employees for the holiday season.
During a joint news conference Tuesday at a downtown hotel, national, state and local hotel leaders said they have high hopes for a bustling summer tourism season as the industry slowly recovers from COVID-19 shutdowns.
The city's hotel occupancy rate remains down 24 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels, but the tourism sector is optimistic that as international travel restrictions ease, group tourism picks up and conferences return to the city, downtown will be vibrant again.
To accommodate the projected increase in visitors and conference attendees, the industry wants to hire and retain hotel workers by providing above-average-paying jobs with benefits and career paths.
The announcement comes on the heels of the mayor's London Breed and the supervisor Aaron Peskin will introduce legislation on Monday that aims to convert vacant Union Square retail stores into vibrant spaces.
If approved, building code policies would change so that multi-level buildings could be converted into office space, restaurants and retail stores all at once.
“The challenges facing our downtown require us to imagine what is possible and create the foundation for a stronger, more resilient future,” Breed said.
After about 18 months of lockdown restrictions, San Francisco’s 200-plus hotels lost a large portion of their 25,000-person workforce; at the peak of the pandemic, the industry lost about 70 percent of its workers. Today, the workforce is about 75 to 80 percent of what it was before the pandemic, said San Francisco Hotel Council President and CEO Alex Bastian.
"We are thinking about really growing again, we are thinking about returning this community to where it was before and taking it even further," Bastian stressed.
Bastian said now is the time to double down on hospitality, especially as the tech and finance industries face difficulties. Tourism is an industry that provided about $440 million in direct tax revenue in 2019, and getting back to those numbers could directly improve the city’s overall conditions, he said.
“We’ve been through earthquakes, we’ve been through pandemics, we’ve been through tech bubbles; and every time we go through whatever challenge it is, we always come back better,” Bastian said. “We always come back stronger. And that’s what we’re going to do collectively in this room, and that’s what we’re going to do as San Franciscans.”
California Hotel & Lodging Association President and CEO Lynn Mohrfeld said he is “very pleased” with how San Francisco is working to recover from the pandemic, which hit hotels in major cities in the state hard. Across the country, people weren’t looking to urban destinations with so much uncertainty about the virus, he said.
"Our success in the hotel industry is tied to the vitality of the city," Mohrfeld said.
The hotel’s revitalization also goes hand-in-hand with a reduction in office vacancies and the return of San Franciscans to Union Square, said Marisa Rodriguez, executive director of the Union Square Alliance. She said she wants residents to feel like Union Square is their “living room.”
“When local hotels thrive, so do Union Square businesses,” Rodriguez emphasized. “That’s because hotel guests support local shops, restaurants and other small businesses when they visit San Francisco. We’re excited to partner with city leaders and hotels to ensure our beloved downtown reaches its full potential.”
To learn more about available hospitality jobs, residents can visit a job fair at the Ferry Building scheduled for April 12, hosted by the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development.
Mateo Diaz-Magaloni and Ben Fry with Peninsula 360 Press interviewed several teens and young adults in the Bay Area to see how myths about COVID-19 have affected young people's perception of the vaccine and rumors about its effects. Photo: P360P
By Mateo Diaz-Magaloni and Ben Fry
Although masks have come off, mandates have been lifted, and lives are starting to return to normal, there are still lingering fears and myths about COVID-19. One of the most widespread myths is about the COVID-19 vaccine. Mateo Diaz-Magaloni and Ben Fry with Peninsula 360 Press interviewed several teens and young adults in the Bay Area to see how these myths have affected young people’s perception of the vaccine and rumors about its effects.
During the first distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, logging into various social media sites made it easy to find information about the vaccine. Several “influencers» and individuals shared their opinions about the vaccine on Instagram and Twitter. Some of this led to misinformation being spread on the platform, with myths about the vaccine becoming a widespread problem on social media.
This misinformation was considered dangerous as it spread unnecessary fear. For this reason, Instagram found it beneficial to provide a COVID-19 fact-checking service on posts related to the topic, while Twitter kept an eye on accounts that sought to spread myths.
This is important because even before COVID-19, misinformation, especially in politically charged messages, was found to spread at an even higher rate than truthful information (Langin 2018).
While Instagram has maintained its fact-checking capabilities, placing a flag on posts that spread falsehoods, Twitter has stopped monitoring accounts and even restored some that spread vaccine myths after the recent acquisition of Elon MuskGiven how social media has spread myths about the vaccine, what have people heard, how did they hear it, and why does it matter?
When we asked young people why they got vaccinated, the top reason they gave was that it was to protect their families. Most did so because of their family values, even if they had varying levels of confidence in its effectiveness. One senior at Palo Alto High School said, “I got vaccinated as soon as I could, with boosters too, I did it because everyone around me did and it was important to my parents.”
Additionally, when asked if they were afraid of the vaccine, one Mountain View resident stated that they were “more afraid of getting COVID… than they were afraid of the vaccine itself.” This is not the same experience that everyone has regarding the vaccine.
When speaking with a Mountain View High School sophomore, they said they were afraid of the effects of the vaccine. They explained that a lot of these fears came from their friends and what they were told. They noted that many of their friends did not get vaccinated due to fears, however, they chose to go against those fears because it was important for their families.
During the interviews, young people expressed that their fears about the COVID-19 vaccine came from what their friends told them, however, in many cases it was family values that helped them face these fears. Photo: P360P
The same interviewee explained that this fear came from the belief that there was “a chip that they put in you so the government can spy on you.” This belief was corroborated by a senior at Palo Alto High School who also claimed to have the same belief, about microchips in the vaccine. We asked where they had heard these myths and both responded that they originated through social media platforms such as TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram.
The second major myth with the COVID-19 vaccine was the belief that after being vaccinated you can develop autism. One Stanford student we interviewed explained that he had heard through social media that getting the vaccine would cause autism. They say spreading myths about autism is harmful to people on the autism spectrum.
Both myths seem to be widespread, despite different stances, with some considering them as jokes and others with a sense of fear regarding them. Despite the feeling that these myths are more like jokes, they are dangerous as they create fears about the vaccine and unnecessary stigma towards others.
The overwhelming consensus from our interviewees was that the spread of false information does have a detrimental impact on the safety, trust, and transparency of their communities. Given that young people today spend a significant amount of time on social media and are heavily influenced by their peers, it stands to reason that those in the Bay Area who are surrounded by friends who believe these falsehoods are more likely to accept them as truth.
For example, when we asked our participants about their beliefs in vaccine myths, they all expressed skepticism towards such claims. Interestingly, that individual was part of a social circle where most people were unvaccinated. It is crucial for young people today to be able to discern fake news and navigate social media without blindly believing everything they come across.
With the increasing use of social media, more and more people are making use of sites like Twitter and Instagram to stay up to date. The problem is that the rates of myths and misinformation being spread on these platforms are alarmingly high. While some people can discern fact from falsehood, the spread of misinformation is still dangerous as seen with COVID-19.
The spread of these myths represents a great danger to our society as it creates fear and mistrust. This point was excellently made by one interviewee who said: “The spread of myths gives rise to fear where there need be no fear.” It is essential to eradicate these myths and provide only the truth when there are many doubts and questions about a new topic.
Mateo Diaz-Magaloni: She is 18 years old and a senior at Palo Alto High School. She has written extensive research papers on issues related to social justice in Latin America and the United States. She has interned at a consulting firm in Berlin, Germany, for German anthropologists in Mexico, and for the Stanford Center on the Economy and Institutions of China lab. She helped write a scholarly paper for the lab.
Benjamin Fry: He is an 18-year-old student at Palo Alto High School. He is a Bay Area native and has lived in Fremont his entire life. For the past several years, he has written works primarily related to psychology, often involving adolescents and young adults. These topics range from gambling addiction to migration stress. He is currently conducting his own research project for a class that delves into the psychology of young adult gambling addicts.
