Should we be vaccinating 12-15 year old girls only?

[ItllBeOverByChristmas]

Another study has come out on the risks of the Pfizer vaccine. It's only a preprint and you could pick holes in the approach, but it's telling us what the JCVI have already said, that the risk for this age group of non-trivial side effects from the vaccine may outweigh the risk of harm from the disease....but only in boys.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.30.21262866v1

It's come at exactly the wrong time for the government who are about to announce that it will be rolled out for all 12-15 year olds for reasons which go beyond simple health benefits.

But if you were looking at this is a vacuum there's an obvious conclusion: give it to the children who will definitely benefit, don't give it to the ones for whom the risks might outweigh the benefits. Just vaccinate the girls.

I know it'll never happen but the politics are interesting. Why is it so unthinkable?

@ItllBeOverByChristmas

It's not a "slightly" higher risk for boys. Latest report suggests it's ten times higher. The virus is unquestionably more dangerous than the vaccine for girls, it's only for boys that there's a query.

The virus is not ‘unquestionably’ more dangerous for girls. The risk of belong hospitalised with covid for a 12-15 year old healthy girl is only very slightly more than more serious health problems from The vaccine!

@AlixandraTheGreat I think you need to do a bit basic research if you think the risk of covid is ‘much much higher’ for this age group.
It really isn’t at all

The other thing to consider is pregnancy is also a risk factor for COVID, increasing the risk factor for girls (given that a small percentage of them will become pregnant within the next year)

Surely where things are finely balanced, it’s better to give people the choice. I was called for vaccine while ttc - and it would have been AZ at the time (when more info was coming out about blood clots).

I have had a blood clot in the past, but also have v mild asthma. I discussed with health professionals and decided to wait - as my exposure was low (wfh). Then Pfizer became available, but I wanted to wait until 20weeks pregnant as much of baby development would have taken place - and they still didn’t have a huge amount of data yet. If my exposure had been higher (eg public facing role) or I had severe asthma I might have had the vaccine earlier. Talked to medical professionals and by this time evidence was tipping more towards having the pfizer - so had the jabs.

Different children have different circumstances - medical risks, exposure, social consequences (eg household members who are vulnerable or bad internet/poor home schooling provision) if they get covid. I hope they can discuss with medical staff what is best in their situation and come to a decision they are happy with.

[quote Silverswirl]@AlixandraTheGreat I think you need to do a bit basic research if you think the risk of covid is ‘much much higher’ for this age group.
It really isn’t at all[/quote]

Read more carefully. I meant the risk of myocarditis from COVID infection was much higher than that of the vaccine.

I wish they would just say sex and have none of this confusion about genders when this is clearly about female and male children as distinguished by sex.
My older son is not in the 12-15 range so I think the evidence leans towards giving it to him but I’m kind of glad I have a bit longer for it all to be clearly interpreted for us. Sorry I know that’s not helpful.