Teens turn to COVID-19 vaccine advocacy as most state laws prohibit minors from being vaccinated without consent

Teens For Vaccines has more than 4,000 student members.

There is a high school sophomore from Texas who wakes up at 6 a.m. on the weekends when she knows her parents are asleep, so she can secretly and quietly make calls as an ambassador for a teen pro-vaccine group, fighting off vaccine misinformation.

The reason for all the cloak and dagger secrecy? The 15-year-old, who asked to be called Rain (not her real name), is the daughter of QAnon followers who hold strident views against mask wearing, social distancing and the coronavirus vaccine.

Rain is part of a growing generational divide, experts say, in a nation where adults and their children are consuming two entirely different streams of information about the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic, with many holding sharply different views about how they should respond to it.

“Students are thinking for themselves,” said Dr. Douglas Diekema, a University of Washington Medicine Professor of Pediatrics and Seattle Children’s Physician. “Kids spent an entire year, in most places, not being able to go out and now, they want to go to school, they want to see their friends and they know that the quickest way to do that and the safest way to do that is to get vaccinated."