That’s what worries Danielpour, who just graduated from high school and lives in Los Angeles, where county leaders recently reinstituted a requirement to wear masks indoors due to rising COVID-19 cases. She started the research for VaxTeen before the pandemic, after coming across a Reddit post from a teenager who wanted to get their routine adolescent immunizations but whose parents opposed vaccines. Danielpour fell down a social media “rabbit hole” and encountered lots of other teens in similar situations. Most wanted to know if they could consent to vaccines on their own, without parental permission, and how they could go about getting them. “I was just in awe, and I also realized how many barriers were in place,” she says. “Whenever we talk about sort of the anti-vaccine movement, we always just talk about parents. We don’t really think about kids having their own opinions on this, or being part of this conversation or having the potential to be the decision makers. She wanted VaxTeen to be a resource for those teens, and her work became newly urgent amid the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and the pervasiveness of vaccine hesitancy…

VaxTeen has focused on teens who want to be vaccinated but who can’t get the shot because of their parents. Young people consistently email Danielpour and reach out over Twitter and Instagram, asking for help and advice. She also scrolls through Reddit and Twitter for posts from teens sharing their vaccination questions and dilemmas. “I just want to be able to go to school in person,” wrote one student on Reddit, who identified herself as a 16-year-old who “can’t change my parents’ minds” about vaccines. “I feel like my health and my concerns are just being completely disregarded,” wrote another 16-year-old girl on Reddit, referring to her mother. “Any advice on how to convince her?”