New research study - share your thoughts!

[Research4parents]

New research has been published at the University of Derby, investigating the predictors of COVID-19 vaccine decision-making among parents of children aged 5-11 in the UK. See the paper here Paper link

Very interesting.

"those aged between 5–11 had the
lowest vaccine uptake, with 11 % (n =192,994) receiving the rst
vaccine and only 0.2 % (n =4152) receiving the second vaccine"

That's a LOT of parents very, very quietly not following the consensus science. Despite the lure of the free petting zoos and the fancy plasters.

I don’t know anyone who covid vaccinated their young children. People know now that those in power are often not motivated by what’s best for our kids, sadly.

I think it would be interesting for other studies to investigate how vaccination status in children correlates with Long Covid illness. Does it provide any mitigation effect? No effect at all? Negative correlation? It's important to know.

Conspiracy theorists do love to claim that all Long Covid illness is caused by vaccines, but according to the latest ONS figures, about 1% of children in England & Scotland, a mostly unvaccinated population, were suffering from Long Covid in March 2024, double the numbers from the previous report in March 2023.

This is lower than in adults (where prevalence was at over 3% in the same March 2024 report) but it seems to be growing much more rapidly than in adults, and it does look to disprove the theory that Covid is benign in children. If Long Covid in kids continues to grow this fast and vaccines can help mitigate in any way, there needs to be a more sustained national effort to vaccinate children.

@AreYouVeryAnti

That’s such a load of nonsense. Both my children are in that age group. They’ve never been offered it, so we haven’t taken it. If it was recommended then I would.
They are less likely to get seriously ill, but if I was advised then to then I would.

Bear in mind that the purpose of this study appears to be ways to increase Covid vaccination uptake next time. So the assumption is that it was a “good thing”

I’d definitely vaccinate both my children if offered. I don’t want Long Covid impacting their education.

“Even in a very small wave where only 5% of healthy five- to 11-year-olds in England were reinfected over six months, we estimated that vaccination could still prevent a few thousand cases of long COVID. The benefits could be significant. Even if most children with long COVID recover within six months, that’s still a potentially big impact on a child’s life and education.”

I would have vaccinated mine. Like many others, they caught covid before they were given the chance.

Are you saying children between age 5 and 11 were never offered a COVID vaccination?