Vaccinating children?
Should we vaccinate the 12-18 year olds?
Lots of countries are doing this, but we are not. Why not?
I think there's only one reason - 12-18 year olds are already ledd susceptible to severe Covid than adults. But 1) they are not invulnerable, and 2) they can be carriers.
12-18 year olds are great mixers. At school, and via their social life. You aren't gong to be able to stop the older end of that group from going out and dancing in crowds; and maybe not some of the younger end, either.
As always, it comes down to a balance of risk. You have to balance the risk of vaccinating (tmes the number to be vaccinated) against the risk of leaving those people unvaccinated.
We get good safety data from the USA; the Pfizer vaccine was approved for 16-18 year olds last December, and for 12-15 in May. And the data says that it's a lot riskier to leave them unvaccinated, than to vaccinate.
And that's without the extra benefits of removing 12-18 year olds from the population of carriers, and getting closer to herd immunity.
No comments:
Post a Comment