Almost: There were mandates related to the Covid vaccine because nations were trying to contain a //serious global pandemic//. Those words didn't mean a lot to rubes who live in rural areas where the virus wasn't a major problem, and the issue became politicized. Generally, and this has been true for decades, people are free to decide if they wish to get their kids vaccinated or not--as generations have been vaccinated on the advice of doctors and health/medical experts. But those were days before some people decided to start paying more attention to conspiracy theoriest and crackpots than experts. I believe there's now a pretty serious measile outbreak in DeSantis's anti-science, anti-vaccine, Florida. People are always free to make dumb decisions.