The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the Los Angeles School Board will eventually abandon trying to force vaccinate their students with the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a GOP congressional candidate.
“They are going to push it back again and I also think they are going to eventually forget about it,” said Greg Raths, who is campaigning on the Republican ticket for the 40th Congressional District.
Raths, 68, was responding to an announcement this week that both the LAUSD and the LA School Board are delaying imposing the COVID-19 vaccine on students until July 1, 2023.
“I think that was really a push in the first place for some companies and organizations like school districts to mandate the shot,” said Rath who has been vaccinated and boosted. “So many people were not comfortable with it because we heard so many different theories about the virus. There are some people who just don't trust the government because it seemed like there was a change in policy every few months.”
Initially, the mandate was to take effect in December 2021 but was postponed until Fall 2022, according to media reports.
“I think the school district and school board are just hoping it goes away,” Raths told the Southern California Record. “The COVID vaccine is like a flu shot. You need it once a year, but it’s not required to get a flu shot to go to school.”
If elected, the Mission Viejo resident would initiate Congressional hearings to investigate the nation’s pandemic response.
“I want to find out what went on for the past two and a half years,” he said. “I want to know in detail, what was the whole story? Was it a real threat to everybody or was it just a threat to the elderly? Was it a threat to those with some type of underlying condition and learn from what just went on so that we can be prepared the next time.”
Prior to campaigning for Congress, Raths spent 30 years in the military and retired as a colonel.
He worked three years at the White House when he was a Lieutenant Colonel and as the assistant chief of staff of the White House military office in the east wing under former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s second term.
“I would want to author law to return the United States back to energy independence as far as oil and gas and nuclear like we were before and I think that would solve many problems,” he said.
As Congressman, Raths would also prioritize securing the Southern border.
“There’s a lot of fentanyl coming over the border and there's a lot of these youngsters using drugs thinking they're going to get a quick high but it’s laced with fentanyl and then they end up dead,” he added. “I'm not some 30-year-old kid. I have a worldview. I've been on three combat tours in Desert Storm, Somalia, and in Iraq. So, I know what goes on.”