09-13-2021, 08:45 AM
Admittedly, I didn't really read the 5 pages of discussion regarding vaccinating children, but I can't understand why anyone would argue against vaccinating children if it's safe to do so. What's worse: potential side effects from a vaccine (which, based on our understanding, seem very minimal/rare), or potential side effects from a novel virus that has completely disrupted this world and killed millions of people - including many children? We have no understanding of what long Covid may do to children yet. In 15 years, those who were infected by the virus could end up developing life long debilitating side effects. A disease is much scarier than a vaccine made to fight the virus that causes it.
Our current understanding of these vaccines is that they should be safe for children. And, there are currently ongoing trial studies to determine whether or not it's safe for them. Using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for example, they did a trial study on nearly 3000 children aged 12-17 and were able to conclude that it is both safe and effective. Now they are currently in the final phase of trials for children aged 5-11 with hopes that that will provide more information on how safe it is for children aged 6 months-4 years old. A lot of the other vaccines - Moderna, ZyCoV-D, Abdala etc - are also doing trials. Some have already been approved for emergency use in children; one example is Sinopharm which is approved for children as young as 3 and which has so far not seen any serious issues in that regard.
I'm not a parent so I guess I don't understand the natural wariness of a parent to give their child a very new vaccine (some of which have entirely new technologies we don't exactly know a lot about), but if I was one I would rather they get vaccinated than potentially suffer from Covid-19. All vaccines are put through trials and that's how we determine whether or not it's safe. All the vaccines we got as children had to go through the same and since we had some daring parents and children thankfully volunteer to participate in trial studies which is why we are now safely able to be vaccinated against things like mumps and rubella.
Our current understanding of these vaccines is that they should be safe for children. And, there are currently ongoing trial studies to determine whether or not it's safe for them. Using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for example, they did a trial study on nearly 3000 children aged 12-17 and were able to conclude that it is both safe and effective. Now they are currently in the final phase of trials for children aged 5-11 with hopes that that will provide more information on how safe it is for children aged 6 months-4 years old. A lot of the other vaccines - Moderna, ZyCoV-D, Abdala etc - are also doing trials. Some have already been approved for emergency use in children; one example is Sinopharm which is approved for children as young as 3 and which has so far not seen any serious issues in that regard.
I'm not a parent so I guess I don't understand the natural wariness of a parent to give their child a very new vaccine (some of which have entirely new technologies we don't exactly know a lot about), but if I was one I would rather they get vaccinated than potentially suffer from Covid-19. All vaccines are put through trials and that's how we determine whether or not it's safe. All the vaccines we got as children had to go through the same and since we had some daring parents and children thankfully volunteer to participate in trial studies which is why we are now safely able to be vaccinated against things like mumps and rubella.