The question is: should children be vaccinated against COVID-19?
If you had asked me that a couple of weeks ago, I would have said I’m not sure. I was 50:50.
The problem with trying to prevent a disease by injecting a foreign substance into the body of a child is that you have to be sure that what you are going to do is not worse than the disease itself. Up to that point, COVID-19, with the occasional exception, was not seen as a serious disease of children. Like any facet of human life, exceptions do occur and, although unfortunate and devastating for the individual family affected, it’s unethical to make decisions that could affect millions and millions of children based on the relatively few serious adverse effects that COVID-19 realised on individual children.
We have real life experience with deaths in children from COVID-19 and it is incredibly rare.
England has a population of just over twelve million children. During the period March 2020 to February 2021, 3105 children died in England. 25 died from COVID.
That is two children a month. Or two deaths from COVID for every million English children.
In addition, 19 of the 25 children who died of COVID had an underlying serious medical condition, eg 15 were considered to have a life-limiting condition, severe brain damage.
In the USA with a population of 73 million children, children account for about a quarter of 1 per cent of all the people who have died, about 500 cases.
What about morbidity? The figures were also reassuring. Half of the children who got COVID-19 are asymptomatic, no signs. Most of the others had mild signs. A few (1-2 per cent) would get admitted to hospital and a small subsection of those to the ICU.
We are also concerned about something called “Long COVID” which is when some of the symptoms last longer than the usual two weeks. The latest data is that less than 2 out of every hundred children may suffer from this for no longer than 2 months.
To date most children who have got COVID get over it very quickly. There are concerns about the very long term effects of the illness but we have to make decisions now, on the information available now, not on the possibility of problems in the future, which, unless this virus behaves differently to every other virus known to man, is highly unlikely.
Another reason at the time not to immunise children was that we would have been taking away vaccines from the vulnerable population, the obese elderly with diabetes and hypertension etc, those dying from COVID-19.
So what happened to change my opinion on vaccines for children because I now believe that all children should be vaccinated against COVID-19?
Three things happened. Two arrivals in the island. One, large amounts of vaccines so we can now vaccinate everybody. Two, the Delta variant. And the third was the realisation that we desperately need to start back regular school.
The Delta variant is more contagious. Not necessarily more deadly. But because it’s more contagious, there are more cases and more serious cases. And it is attacking the younger age groups.
Over 90 per cent of COVID cases in the USA are now due to Delta.
The percentage of these total COVID-19 cases represented by children is growing: 14.3 per cent in the week ended Aug 5, compared with less than 2 per cent for most of 2020. Children today make up more than one in five cases of COVID-19 in the USA.
It has gotten more serious for children too. More than 90 per cent of the ICU beds in Texas have been full for the last month. On Aug. 13, there were no pediatric ICU beds available in Dallas.
The UK, which had been holding out in vaccinating children for the reasons stated above, took the decision early this month to immunise the 16 and 17-year-olds with Pfizer and on August 21 approved the Moderns vaccine for the age group 12 to 18.
The balance has changed.
The Pfizer vaccine is effective, especially against serious disease. It’s worthwhile taking, as long as the side effects are not serious.
As of mid July 9 million kids had received the Pfizer vaccine in the USA. There were just over 9,000 side effects reported. 9 out of every 10 cases were minor, muscle soreness. There were about a thousand cases considered serious. Mortality is very rare and most cases are mild. About 400 of those were myocarditis, which everyone talks about.
There is a one in 20,000 risk of getting myocarditis from the Pfizer shot. The risk of getting myocarditis from the disease, COVID-19 is one in 43. There’s no comparison.
Possible long term side effects from myocarditis are unknown and studies are ongoing.
Schools need to be opened. The potential risks of in-person learning pale in comparison to the emotional and educational benefits of going back to real school.
The weight of evidence has shifted considerably towards vaccination of children.
The decision to vaccinate or not has to be made ultimately by parents and children. Would I vaccinate my grandchildren? The answer is yes.