LAST UPDATE | 19 Nov

AN OLD HEADLINE that says Simon Harris believed unvaccinated children should be barred from schools is being shared again, misleading some people into thinking it is a current story.

Harris said, when he was Minister for Health in 2019, that he was in favour of the measure in theory, but no such plans were ever enacted.

“Harris agrees unvaccinated children should be barred from school”, a screenshot of the headline reads. A further caption superimposed on the screenshot by an unknown author and shared on social media encourages Harris to be injured in the head with a weapon.

A version of the image was posted to Facebook on 14 November, receiving replies that mention Covid-19 vaccines and claims they are dangerous.

However, the headline and accompanying news story were from before the pandemic.

The actual article was published in the Irish Times in April 2019, and described how Harris responded to a suggestion by an Irish doctor that unvaccinated children should be barred from schools.

Harris said on the platform then known as Twitter that he agreed with the idea.

His full post from the time read: “Instinctively agree. Think we may have constitutional issues here. Will research further. #VaccinesSaveLives”

Covid-19 was an unknown virus at the time, and Harris was instead referring to the HSE’s immunisation schedule, which included inoculations for diseases that cause meningitis and polio, among others.

Harris was later reported in September 2019 to have inquired with the Attorney General about banning unvaccinated children from attending crèches, but was advised it would likely impede the rights of children to get an education.

The Covid-19 pandemic would begin in China in December that year, though no recorded instances of the disease would be detected in Ireland until 2020.

Although numerous health measures had been put in place to prevent the spread of the pandemic, including the closure of schools for a time, unvaccinated children were never banned from schools.

Harris would be appointed Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, in June 2020, and left his position as health minister long before vaccines for Covid-19 were made available for anyone in Ireland.

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