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With Pfizer-BioNTech’s announcement on Monday that its coronavirus vaccine has been shown to be safe and effective in low doses in children aged 5 to 11, a question arises: how many parents will give it to their families. children?
If cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, the vaccine could be a game-changer for millions of American families and could help bolster the U.S. response to the highly contagious Delta variant. There are approximately 28 million children aged 5 to 11 in the United States, far more than the 17 million children aged 12 to 15 who became eligible for Pfizer’s vaccine in May.
But it remains to be seen how many young people will be vaccinated. Adoption among older children has lagged behind, and polls indicate reservations among a significant number of parents.
Lorena Tule-Romain had been up early Monday morning, preparing to transport her 7-year-old son to school in Dallas, when she turned on the television and heard the news.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is exciting,'” said Ms Tule-Romain, 32, who said she felt a surge of hope and relief. She spent months in limbo, turning down birthday party invitations, delaying her son’s enrollment in the orchestra at school, and even canceling a trip to see her son’s grandparents in Atlanta. .
Ms Tule-Romain will be among those eagerly awaiting whether federal authorities will allow the vaccine for the younger group, a step that should take place first in an emergency, possibly as early as Halloween.
However, according to FDA rules, Michelle Goebel, 36, of Carlsbad, Calif., Said she was far from ready to vaccinate her children, ages 8, 6 and 3, against Covid-19. .
Although Ms Goebel said she had been vaccinated herself, she expressed concern about the risks to her children, in part because of the relatively small size of the pediatric trials and the lack of safety data available to them. long term so far. She said the potential risk of a new vaccine seemed to outweigh the benefits, as young children were much less likely than adults to get seriously ill.
Only about 40 percent of children ages 12 to 15 have been fully immunized so far, compared to 66 percent of adults, according to federal data. Surveys indicate that parents’ openness to vaccination decreases with the age of the child.
About 20% of parents of children ages 12 to 17 said they definitely had no plans to get their child vaccinated, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey released last month. The “definitely not” group increased to around 25% among parents of children aged 5 to 11 and to 30% among parents of children under 5.
René LaBerge, 53, of Katy, Texas, said she plans to vaccinate her 11-year-old son when he becomes eligible. “But I’m not impatient. I want them to do the job, ”she said.
She said she had heard of some rare, but serious, side effects in children, and was eager for federal officials to take a deeper look at the data.
“I don’t want my son to take something that is not safe,” she said, but added: “I think Covid is dangerous. There are no good, easy answers here.
Among the side effects that scientists have studied is myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart. In rare cases, the vaccine has caused myocarditis in young people. But a large Israeli study, based on the electronic health records of two million people aged 16 and over, also found that Covid was much more likely to cause these heart problems.
The results of the Pfizer trial have been enthusiastically received by many school administrators and teacher organizations, but are unlikely to lead to immediate policy changes.
“This is a big step towards victory against Covid and a return to normalcy. I don’t think this changes the conversation about vaccine requirements for children, ”said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, a national union.
Ms. Weingarten predicted that there would not be a blanket mandate to vaccinate students until the 2022-2023 school year. She noted that parents and educators were still awaiting full FDA approval for vaccines for children ages 12 to 15, and the warrants for adults did not come until months after the vaccines became. available for the first time.
A major obstacle to vaccinating children, she said, was the widely held conspiracy theories about injections affecting fertility.
“When people have these conversations prematurely about the requirements, it adds to the mistrust,” she said.
Construction workers in Melbourne, Australia clashed fiercely with police for the second day in a row on Tuesday in a dispute over mandatory vaccinations.
As many as 2,000 protesters took to the city’s central business district, police said. Videos posted on social media showed workers throwing bottles at police and setting off flares, while officers in riot gear fired rubber bullets and used pepper spray. A television reporter noted urine was thrown in her face.
The protests began after the government in Victoria state, where Melbourne is the largest city, made vaccination of workers mandatory as it struggles to contain a growing epidemic of the Delta variant. Protesters vowed to continue to demonstrate, chanting “every day” as they marched.
The union representing construction workers did not support mandatory vaccinations but distanced itself from the protests, saying they were “heavily infiltrated by neo-Nazis and other far-right groups.”
Construction was one of the few industries that remained largely open throughout the pandemic in Victoria, but authorities are increasingly concerned that it could be a hotbed of transmission of the disease. coronavirus.
After media reported last week that three in four construction sites were breaking virus safety regulations, the state government made vaccination of workers in the industry mandatory.
Australian authorities have been reluctant to impose vaccinations beyond high-risk sectors like healthcare.
In response, construction workers staged sit-ins on Friday, before escalating into protests this week. On Monday, a small number of workers gathered outside the construction union offices and threw projectiles at the building.
Hours later, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews ordered all construction work in the state to halt for two weeks, citing “continued concern over the number of cases, the risk of transmission and a reduced compliance “.
On Tuesday afternoon, police said they had made 44 arrests, the number of which is expected to increase, and that three police officers were injured and police cars attacked and damaged.
Unlike 2020, when the United Nations General Assembly session was held almost entirely virtually due to the pandemic, more than 100 world leaders and other high-ranking officials plan to deliver their speeches in person this year. year.
But access to the 16-acre United Nations complex in Manhattan remains strictly limited, with mandatory masks and other Covid prevention measures. US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters the measures were aimed at ensuring that the General Assembly “does not turn into a big event.”
Confusion erupted last week over a New York City requirement that all General Assembly attendees must show proof of vaccination. The President of this year’s General Assembly, Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid of the Maldives, approved the requirement. But it is not clear exactly how it will be applied.
UN officials have said staff at the organization’s headquarters must be vaccinated, but an honor system remains in place for VIPs and other guests.
In what appeared to be a goodwill gesture, the New York City government deployed a mobile vaccination clinic outside the United Nations compound, offering free tests and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
Many speakers this year still chose to deliver their remarks via pre-recorded video, as did all leaders last year when vaccines were still under development and every delegation in the General Assembly Hall. was limited to two people. Almost all of the events of the 2020 event took place virtually.
This year, each Member State can accommodate up to four people in the General Assembly Hall.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, an avowed vaccine skeptic whose popularity has fallen at home in part because of what critics call his disastrous handling of the pandemic, vowed before his speech that he would not be vaccinated.
He was infected with Covid over a year ago and then claimed to have been cured by taking hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that has not been shown to be effective in the treatment of Covid.
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