Vaccinating Kids Is Important. Why Aren't We Ready To Begin?

Covid Vaccine Trials Among Children Are Just Starting, And They Are Going To Last Many Months To Ensure Safety And Efficacy

- Abhilash Gaur

Covid does not spare any age, so everybody should get vaccinated. But children, who make up more than a quarter of the world’s population, are not going to be vaccinated anytime soon, simply because no vaccine has been tested on them.

We don’t know how effective the current vaccines are in children, and whether they cause severe side effects. In the US, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have recently started trials of their vaccines among children aged 12-plus, but the evaluation is going to take many months, unlike the quick emergency approvals granted for use in adults. Other vaccine makers have also announced plans for child trials.

With schools reopening across the world now, a vast pool of hitherto sheltered humans will soon be exposed to the virus. We don’t know if it will cause new outbreaks, but the possibility exists.

WHY VACCINATE CHILDREN?

Monitoring of Covid outbreaks last summer showed that children were less likely to get infected, and those who caught the virus often did not get sick. Covid was most dangerous for the elderly and least for children.

While the data was reassuring – making children a lesser concern in the pandemic – Gregory Barber writes in Wired that it would be a mistake to look at people as averages.