Rita Panahi: Opening up shouldn’t depend on child Covid vaccine rates

Children shouldn’t be included in the vaccination targets needed to re-open the country with even the experts divided on the issue.

The issue of vaccinating children against Covid-19 remains a contentious one both here and overseas.

There is disagreement among infectious disease experts on the need to vaccinate healthy children against a virus that disproportionately affects the very old and infirm.

Some countries are vaccinating children as young as 12 while others, including Britain, only allow Covid-19 vaccines for under 18s if the patient has a pre-existing health condition or lives with someone who does.

Unlike Britain, Australia’s vaccination rate will be determined by the number of people aged 16 or over, making targets to re-open the country much harder to achieve.

The eligible age group could be expanded further after the Therapeutic Goods Administration approved Pfizer for children aged 12 and over. The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation has updated its recommendation for the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in vulnerable children aged 12 to 15 which will let more than 200,000 children become eligible for the vaccine.

From Monday children 12 and over who have specific medical conditions or identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or live in a remote community will be able to receive the Pfizer vaccine.

However, medical experts remain split on the merits of vaccinating healthy minors. Studies have consistently shown that among young children influenza is more dangerous than Covid-19, and that the age group is far less likely to spread the disease than infected adults.

There is disagreement among infectious disease experts on the need to vaccinate healthy children against Covid.

Martin Makary, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month that the evidence behind the vaccination push for children was flimsy. His team analysed about 48,000 cases of children under 18 diagnosed with Covid-19.

“Our report found a mortality rate of zero among children without a pre-existing medical condition such as leukemia. If that trend holds, it has significant implications for healthy kids and whether they need two vaccine doses,” Dr Makary wrote.

In Britain, the most comprehensive study undertaken into the effects of Covid-19 on children found that almost all of the 25 deaths in the under 18 age group were patients with serious underlying health issues, including life-limiting conditions and complex neurodisabilities. Only children with serious pre-existing health issues, including a severe neurodisability, Down’s syndrome and cancer, (or those living with an adult with serious health issues) will be able to get the Covid vaccination and the government’s vaccine advisers maintain that the benefits of immunising healthy children are too few.

Britain’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation also cast doubts on whether vaccinating children would limit the spread of the virus from children to adults in a well-vaccinated country and said there was no strong evidence that a vaccination would protect a child from long-Covid. The approach puts Britain at odds with several European countries.

In Australia the debate about the value of giving Covid-19 vaccinations to healthy children has barely begun but so far some experts have expressed caution while others support the move, including Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, who says the vaccine will protect children and reduce community transmission.

Infectious disease expert Nick Coatsworth wrote that “the vaccination of children is contested space”

Infectious disease expert and former deputy chief medical officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth, wrote that “the vaccination of children is contested space” while Professor Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases expert at the Australian National University, called for more research. “I do not think we should vaccinate children until we have the data on safety among children,” he said.

Infectious disease expert and Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Sydney, Robert Booy, warns that it is premature to target children and that we can achieve herd immunity through vaccinating adults.

“Children are at really low risk of the complications of Covid … Children have already suffered because of all the lockdowns, their education, socialisation, their mental health and to put the burden even more on children needs to be further discussed,” he said.

Prof Booy cited the British data to underline children’s natural resilience to Covid-19.

“Very few children in the UK have got sick and the 25 deaths they have compared to 125,000 adults have been largely in children who have severe neurological disability or chronic medical conditions,” he said.

Under 16s with pre-existing health conditions should be prioritised for immunisation but the decision to vaccinate healthy children against Covid-19 should be left to parents and the family doctor.

There should be no “vaccine passports” for minors or any form of coercion. Nor should children be included in the vaccination targets that must be reached to re-open the country.

IN SHORT
There were doomsday predictions from public health officials that Britain’s daily case numbers would skyrocket from 50,000 to 200,000 new cases a day after Freedom Day on July 19. But new cases have plummeted, dropping by half in the past two weeks.