‘COVID calculator’ to help parents decide whether to vaccinate kids

A “COVID-19 calculator” is helping Queensland parents decide whether to get their children vaccinated against the disease.

University of Queensland researchers have previously developed the Immunisation Coalition COVID-19 Risk Calculator (CoRiCal) to give accurate information to adults wanting to know the risks and benefits of getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

Now the online tool has been updated with a version for children aged 5-11, which it is hoped will give parents accurate and up-to-date information about COVID-19 vaccines so they can make a choice about getting their child vaccinated.

UQ virologist, Associate Professor Kirsty Short, said the calculator uses general demographic information to generate a risk assessment for the child.

“The sorts of questions this tool can answer is the risk of the child developing inflammation of the heart – myocarditis, what their chance of going to hospital due to COVID-19 vaccinated versus unvaccinated, what their chance is of developing an inflammatory syndrome, and what their chance of getting Covid is, vaccinated and unvaccinated,” she said.

Short said the aim of the calculator was to cut through the noise of conflicting information available in the public sphere, and provide simple, concise advice based on the latest medical knowledge.

“Obviously the decision to vaccinate needs to be an informed one, like any medical decision, so it’s designed just to present that information to people,” she said.

“We want to distil down a lot of quite complex information, including medical studies and scientific data, into something that people can easily understand.”

Children have historically not been at high risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19, although there have been isolated cases which usually involved comorbidities.

However, research is ongoing into the long-term effects of the illness, and its long-term effects on children are still not well understood.

Additionally, children who are infected with the virus can still pass it on even if they do not have severe symptoms.

CoRiCal team member, Associate Professor John Litt from Flinders University, said there had been a low uptake of vaccines for younger children.

“In particular we’ve observed a very low vaccine uptake in children aged 5 to 11, with only a 10 per cent increase in the last six months,” he said.

“We hope the CoRiCal tool for children will provide a stable and reliable stream of information, without the risk of being misinformed or misled.”

The CoRiCal tool was developed by researchers from the Immunisation Coalition, The University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Sydney University and Flinders University, and can be accessed online.