Kids likely won't be vaxed for quite a while. We need to discuss what this will mean

[Kokeshi123]

Now that the vaccine is here and is starting to be rolled out, discussion is inevitably turning to the subject of vaccination for children.

The current vaccine has not been approved for under 16s. According to this link, "Given trials for kids younger than 12 years won’t begin until safety and efficacy are evaluated in kids 12+, it will likely be sometime in 2022 before a vaccine is approved for kids aged 5-11 years and 2022 or beyond in those even younger."

dearpandemic.org/timeline-for-vaccinations-for-children/

That certainly has some implications. It will raise questions for families who need to travel across international borders, for example. How will this be managed?

It also has implications for herd immunity. We can't get to herd immunity without children being (mostly) vaccinated, and it seems likely that the virus will continue to circulate among children until that happens. I think patience with school/nursery closures is only going to continue for so much longer. But as long as the virus is continuing to slosh around in schools etc., it's inevitable that we will continue to see outbreaks with deaths/hospitalizations throughout 2021 and probably 2022---probably mostly in areas/communities that have high rates of vaccine refusal and have enough unvaccinated over 50s to form a cluster. How is this going to be handled? I don't think people are going to respond well to even more school closures and requests to keep children away from other kids, especially if it starts to become fairly obvious that it's mainly vaccine refusers who are getting sick.

And how can we make sure that the vaccine is given to as many kids as possible? The virus mostly does not seem to be very dangerous for children, so we may have to rely quite heavily on people's sense of civic duty to ensure that they get their kids vaxed.

I do worry that letting it trickle around children will allow it to mutate again. We need to do better at stopping transmission.

@Kokeshi123

I'm also not worried about my kids getting COVID19 per se, but if children form a reservoir of infection, it may keep spilling out and causing outbreaks among older people in areas where vaccination rates are poor. If education keeps on being disrupted (temporary closures etc.) each time this happens, people are not going to be happy.

The vaccine is out there now and progressing through the age groups/vulnerable categories. If someone refuses to have it fine but then don't go complaining if you catch covid and have severe symptoms. A group of people's Selfishness shouldn't dictate that millions of kids get a vaccine which they don't need/isn't yet tested on their age group 🤷‍♀️

not particularly worried about this right now but am fairly sure they will be vaccinated at some point once it has been fully tested on children (which it hasn't yet).
However interesting that Israel is prioritising the 16-18 age group. They will be major vectors in community transmission I think and as it is approved for 16+ surely this warrants consideration.

There are vulnerable people who won't be able to have the vaccine or for who it won't work properly. It's not as simple as have the jab. And they can't all be shut away.

It occurs to me that perhaps the messaging around the vaccine needs to be pointing out that "this is probably going to circulate around the kids for quite a while and society is not going to keep on locking down to keep the numbers down. So if you refuse this vaccine, you are likely to catch the thing at some point--don't imagine that you will be able to hide in the herd, or at least not for a long time."

I'm also wondering what zero-COVID (or, trying-to-be-zero-COVID socities) are going to do about this. Are Oz, NZ, China, Vietnam, S Korea and the like all going to insist on the kids' vaccine being rolled out too before their tight containment measures are dropped? In particular, New Zealand may not be able to open their borders until the kids' vaccine is done, unless they can decide to be OK with a certain (probably very low) level of COVID-related mortality and morbidity. Which they may well do, but it would involve changing the "no COVID in New Zealand whatsoever" message.

[quote Atrixie]@Angel2702 no they won’t. The kids who are ill will be off or actually, not even off if they don’t feel ill and everyone else stays in school just as would happen with anyone other illness. It will work it’s way through the class quickly but there won’t be a need to distance because it will be a mild illness and won’t be affecting those who are vaccinated. Schools won’t be closed[/quote]
Eventually maybe but I can’t see them suddenly switching to this approach any time soon. It’s been drummed into us for over a year isolate isolate test, I can’t imagine in September people being comfortable with them just saying sod it all back to normal.

@Frazzled2207 I imagine that the israel plan is also because their 18 year olds go into the army and they'll want to minimise disruption there